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The Evangelistic Awakening 



The Evangelistic 
Awakening 



By 

Wentworth F. Stewart 




Cincinnati: 

JENNINGS AND GRAHAM. 

New York : 

EATON AND MAINS. 



,58 



UBRARYo? OONQRESS 
Two Copies Hecavea 

AUG 29 1905 

CQpv 6. ^ i 



COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY 
JENNINGS AND GRAHAM. 



INTRODUCTION. 

REV. GEO. ELIvIOTT, D. D., hU D. 

For a score of years solitary voices in the 
wilderness have been proclaiming that the 
Christian Church is on the eve of such a revival 
of spiritual religion as her past history has not 
known or dreamed. Already, in this first 
decade of the twentieth century, these auguries 
of the prophesying heart are beginning to make 
themselves good. There are abundant signs 
that the period of intellectual criticism is about 
to give place to an age of moral faith. 

There are two notes which must characterize 
any real religious awakening, the spiritual and 
the ethical note. There must be a restored 
communion with God and a revival of right- 
eousness. The twin slogans of Methodism, 
"the Witness of the Spirit'' and "Holiness unto 
the Lord," are the abiding foundations of all 
true evangelism. 

These two notes, so aggressively affirmed 
by Wesley and his coadjutors, have been but 
too faintly sounded in the evangelical move- 
ments of the ninteenth century. It is to be 

5 



6 Introduction. 

marked that no general social and mo-ral trans- 
formation of communities has followed the 
hippodrome revivalism of the past generation, 
with its abundant advertising and elaborate 
mechanical devices. Its conversions have been 
too often theological rather than spiritual, and 
secured by passive acquiescence in a verbal 
formula rather than by active trust in a living 
Lord. It has been lacking in spiritual vision 
and in ethical fervor. 

The age of historic criticism through which 
the Church is now passing has doubtless caused 
the shipwreck of many souls. Yet there can be 
no doubt that it is out of the dissolution of in- 
stitutional and confessional religion that a vital 
and moral faith is always born. So it will be 
in the present crisis. Holy Scripture has be- 
come to truly religious souls the very voice of 
the God who shaped the providential history 
back of the sacred records, and all the more so 
that we have ceased to impose upon the oracles 
of God our man-made theories of what would 
constitute a w^orthy revelation of Himself. If 
the bonds of the letter have been relaxed, it is 
only that the voice of the Spirit may speak the 
more distinctly. Truth, dead in the tomb of 
dogma, is springing to life at the question of 



Introduction. 7 

criticism. To those who really believe in God 
it is as certain that a great spiritual revival will 
follow the decay of Protestant scholasticism as 
that the Protestant Reformation itself sprang 
out of the decadence of medieval theology. 

The twentieth century revival must preach 
a whole gospel for the whole of human nature. 
It must proclaim the kingdom of God as a great 
divine earthly possibility. It will seek to save 
the outer life as well as the souls of men. It 
will preach a full salvation, large enough to re- 
deem society from selfishness, business from 
baseness, and politics from pollution. 

There is no new evangelism. Now, as of 
old, the only deliverance possible from sin and 
selfishness is through the grace of God in Jesus 
Christ. Real reformation is rooted in regener- 
ation. But there must be a renewal of the 
evangelical spirit, as the Church feels anew the 
thrill of the old life. Neglected truths must 
be resurrected from the tomb of neglect, and 
well-known ones take on new life and be clothed 
in new forms of expression. The Church 
which experiences a perpetual Pentecost will 
be no slave to mechanism, but will continually 
manifest a fresh originality in methods. 

The pages which follow are more than a 



8 Introduction. 

theoretical discussion of the subject of evangel- 
ism. They are also the laboratory notes of an 
expert. The author has been a successful pas- 
tor, and is now one of the most forceful leaders 
of men among the younger Presiding Elders 
of Methodism. In the organization of his dis- 
trict for aggressive evangelism he has shown 
himself not merely a master of methods, but, 
better still, a dynamic center of inspiration. 

In commending his book, especially to the 
study of our younger preachers, let me also add 
my earnest exhortation that they return with 
renewed zeal to the precious twofold deposit 
of Methodism, the reality of the Divine Life 
in the soul and the possibility of evangelical 
perfection. So shall theirs be a jeweled min- 
istry, which shall realize to the Church the re- 
freshment of "the latter rain.'' 

George Ei^liott. 
Centrai, Church, Detroit, Mich. 



PREFACE. 

This little volume is written, — 

First, to give a general view of the present 
evangelistic situation, to indicate some things 
that have led up to this condition and to set 
forth the signs of better days. 

The prophetic tone of the first part is ac- 
counted for, in that the topics of these three 
chapters were originally discussed more than 
two years ago in the columns of the Michigan 
Advocate, They were rewritten last October, 
and before the book could be completed, be- 
cause of the strenuous work of the winter, the 
prophetic notes of Part One had been in some 
measure fulfilled in the great Welsh revival 
and other manifestations of the same spirit. 
But these, we trust, are only the beginnings. 

It aims, secondly, and more especially, to set 
forth some fundamental principles which need 
emphasis, and to outline what are to be, in the 
author's judgment, the conditions of successful 
evangelism in the Church of the future. It 
does not attempt to suggest methods for ex- 

9 



lo PrEi^ace. 

tensive use, nor does it set forth programs that 
have been or may be successfully executed. We 
do not discount these, but believe them only 
timely expediences, not capable of universal 
adoption, not adjustable to all ages, hence only 
a temporary relief. We contend concerning 
methods and programs of operation, that the 
only evangelism abidingly successful must be 
worked out by men who have hold of essential 
principles, and each man sufficiently ingenious 
to become all things to all men and the author 
of his own methods. In sincerity, 

Wentworth F. Stewart. 

47 Grummond Ave., Detroit, Mich., 
March i, 1905. 



OUTLINE. 

part !• 

PRESENT STATE OF EVANGELISM 

chapter i. 
An Analysis. 

PAGE 

1. A Review, 19 

2. The Questioning Period, 20 

3. The Influence of Modern Scholarship, - - 22 

4. The Effect of the Scientific Spirit, - - 24 

5. The Effect of the Commercial Spirit, - - 25 

6. Perfunctory Service, - 26 

7. Indifferent World, 26 

8. Evangelism in Disfavor, 27 

chapter ii. 
The: Awake^ning. 

1. Notes of Alarm, 31 

2. The Pulpit Awakening, ^^ 

3. The Religious Press, 36 

4. Declarations of Educators and Reformers, - 36 

5. The Laity Aroused, 37 

6. Call of Mission Fields, ^^ 

II 



12 OUTI.INK. 

chapter iii. 
The; Outi^ook. 

PAGE 

1. What of the Night? 41 

2. Evangelistic Crisis, 44 

3. Signs of Hope, 49 

4. Less Defending of the Faith, - - - - 50 

5. Acceptance of a Gospel of Evangelism, - - 51 

6. In Spite of the Cross, 52 

7. A Universal Feeling and Movement, - - 54 

part II, 

PRESENT DAY EVANGELISM. 

Introduction : Propriety of the Term, - - 61 

chapter i. 
The Profe:ssionai. Evange;i.ist. 

1. His Place in the Church, 67 

2. He may be a Dangerous Man, - - - - 70 

3. He must not be a Self-Seeker, - - - - 71 

4. He Should be a Leader, 72 

5. His Future Usefulness, 73 

CHAPTER 11. 

The: Meetings. 

1. Special Services, 77 

2. Protracted Meetings, 79 

3. The Management of the Meetings, - - - 81 

4. Physical Attitudes, - 83 



OUTI.INK. 13 

PAGE 

5. Personal Work, 85 

6. The Man Between, ------ 87 

7. The Emotions, Their Power, - - - - 89 

8. The Emotions, Their Peril, - - - - 92 

9. The Holy Spirit, 95 

10. The Appeal, 99 

chapter hi. 
The: Evangelistic Me:ssage:. 

1. The Importance of the Sermon, - - - 105 

2. A Message Commands Attention, - - - 107 

3. What Shall We Preach? 109 

( 1 ) Not an Apologetic, 109 

(2) Message not Controversial, - - - iii 

(3) Preach the Gospel, not about It, - - 114 

(4) Preach Positive Truths, - - - - 115 

(5) Preach Fundamentals, - - - - 116 

(6) Preach Christ Crucified, - - - - 117 

4. A Message of Authority, 119 

5. Believe in the Message, 121 

6. Your Message Consistent, 123 

7. It must be Impassioned, 124 

8. Passion Kindled by Vision, - - - - 126 

chapter iv. 
The Evangelistic Pastor. 

1. Evangelical Means Evangelistic, - - - 132 

2. Not After a Fixed Pattern, - - - - 133 

3. A Revival without an Evangelist Possible, - 135 

4. An Evangelistic Pastorate Most Permanently 

Strong, 138 



14 Outline. 



PAGE 



5. The Only Satisfying IMinistry, - - - - 142 

6. Evangelism Needs Able Pastoral Leadership, 144 

CHAPTER V. 

The: EvANGE^LisTic Church. 

1. Evangelism must not be Detatched from the 

Church, 151 

2. Evangelism must be the Aim of the Church, 156 

3. The Source of Life and Rejuvenation, - - 159 

4. Reached by Conserving and Intensifying Nor- 

mal Agencies, 162 

(i) The Sunday Evening Service, - - - 166 

(2) The Prayer-Meeting and Evangelism, - 168 

(3) Pastors and Prayer-Meetings, - - - 171 

(4) The Sunday-school and Evangelism, - - 173 

(5) The Young People' s Societies, - - - 178 

5. Evangelism thus becomes Constructive and 

Progressive, 181 

6. Continuous Evangelism Defined, - - - 183 

7. Practical Consecration the Cost, - - - I84 

chapter vi. 
The: Evange:lization o^ thb World. 

1. World Evangelization Involves Evangelism, 192 

2. The Gospel for the World must be Evan- 

gelistic, 192 

3. The Evangelistic Church an Evangelizing 

Church, 194 

4. The Demand of the Hour, - - - - 198 
Conclusion, 199 



part I. 



PRESENT STATE 
EVANGELISM. 



OF 



CHAPTER I. 

AN ANALYSIS. 



1. A Review. 

2. The Questioning Period. 

3. The Influence of Modern Scholarship. 

4. The Effect of the Scientific Spirit. 

5. The Effect of the Commercial Spirit. 

6. Perfunctory Service. 

7. Indifferent World. 

8. Evangelism in Disfavor. 



cHAP'reR I. 
AN ANALYSIS. 

The history of the Christian religion is one 
of periodical revivals. The uprising and on- 
moving tide noted by the several great periods 
— such as the days of the early Church in the 
Roman Empire, the Renaissance, the Reforma- 
tion, the Puritan Movement, and the great 
Wesleyan Revival — are all manifestations of 
the same force, appearing with varied character- 
istics and somewhat different effects. Between 
these great epochs the principles of the Chris- 
tian religion appeared, on the surface, to be on 
the decline. Some peculiar attitude of thought, 
or condition of life into which the world drifted, 
either raised a barrier against these movements 
or paralyzed the vital forces which propelled 
them ; and the Church seemed to find it neces- 
sary to wait for a readjustment of thought be- 
fore she could move forward again upon her 
evangelizing mission. 

It is the consensus of opinion that for the 
19 



20 Thi: Evangi:i.istic Awake:ning. 

last half century we have been passing through 
one of these periods of, at least apparent, de- 
cline, which, on the surface, seems like retro- 
gression, if not degeneration; so that as we 
come face to face with the morning of the 
twentieth century, a rather natural point for 
pausing and considering how great are our 
responsibilities and how vast our opportunities, 
we discover that, with all the splendid heritage 
the past has bestowed upon us, when the 
Church ought to be at the height of its 
glory and power, it is weak and faltering, 
with a consciousness of its condition that 
is perfectly transparent. 

The This has been styled both an age 

Questioning . 

Period. of doubt and an age of faith; and 
this by men equally strong and equally true. 
One writes the ''Gospel for an Age of Doubt/' 
another entitles his book "An Age of Faith." 
These are not representative men of opposite 
views, but each presents a different phase of 
the present attitude of the world. Both views 
are correct. Every age has its aspects of faith 
and every age its phases of doubt. It must be 
evident to all that the great fundamental prin- 
ciples and historic facts of Christianity never 
before had so universal acceptance. Real 



An AnaIvYSis. 21 

atheism or unqualified infidelity are almost en- 
tirely attitudes of the past among thoughtful 
people. Christianity in its essentials, touching 
the historic person and principles of Jesus of 
Nazareth, is hardly questioned. The Sermon 
on the Mount never had so unqualified indorse- 
ment, and Christ was never so unanimously 
accorded the supreme place as to-day, when, 
almost without dissent, the world joins in sing- 
ing, "No mortal can with Him compare." So 
that in the broadest sense, as to confidence in 
the Christian religion, this may be styled, with- 
out controversy, an age of faith. 

Yet viewed from another standpoint this is 
noticeably an age of doubt. We speak not so 
much of the immediate hour as of the period 
which is now closing — if it has not already 
closed — since the beginning of the more gen- 
eral use . of the scientific spirit and historic 
method in Christian theology. But we do not 
mean by doubt, in this relation, that attitude 
of thought which rejects or denies positively 
and aggressively the great truths of religion, 
but, rather, doubt in the sense of uncertainty 
as to just what are tenable positions; in other 
words, the inquiring or questioning spirit. 
This doubt referred to, is not so much in realms 



2.2 The Evange:listic Awakening. 

entirely outside the Church and kingdom, but 
among those within or on the border; who, 
w^hile accepting sufficiently Christian principles 
to identify themselves in a measure with the 
interests of Christianity, are, nevertheless, in 
an unsettled and uncertain attitude as to 
how^ much is necessary to believe, and how 
much can be safely relied upon. These are 
in no sense opponents to Christianity, but 
seekers after truth. 

The influ- I^ ^s ^o reflection upon modern 
Modera scholarship to declare that to it is 
scholarship, ^^^ributable in no little measure this 
present attitude. It is not within the limits 
of this discussion to consider the merits or de- 
merits, the intent or effect upon the faith of 
the Christian world, of the investigations or 
conclusions of modern scholarship. Suffice it 
to say that the result of the historic njethod in 
Christian theology was inevitable; for, while 
men might continue to accept many things not 
yet proven true, they would not continue to 
accept those things that beyond a doubt were 
proven to be without foundation. For side 
by side with the historic method came the sci- 
entific spirit, which demanded that, although 
religion might be supernatural, it could not be 



An Analysis. 23 

irrational ; hence, the result : when through the 
modern method of research many things that 
had been considered heretofore as supremely- 
sacred were taken hold of in the spirit of a 
cold, critical analysis, seeking truth for truth's 
sake, regardless of whether any institutions or 
traditions should be permanently preserved, it 
was quite impossible that the faith of multi- 
tudes of people should fail to be impaired, when 
severed from the anchorage which held them 
quite as much to sacred traditions and institu- 
tions as to fundamental facts ; for not all relig- 
ious teachers would be sufficiently careful in 
dealing with these conditions to protect those 
thus innocently tied to uncertain moorings, 
until their faith had been transferred from tra- 
dition to truth ; while side by side with this in- 
fluence was that more subtle still, which laid 
hold upon the popular mind through the stand- 
ard literature of fiction, which, while unex- 
celled as literature, was, to say the least, misty 
and uncertain, if not almost agnostic in its 
tendencies, upon which the people fed their in- 
tellects, often to the entire paralysis of their 
Christian faith. 

To add to the misfortune of this period, 
leaders of Christian thought, instead of seek- 



24 Th^ Evangelistic Awakening. 

ing a middle ground of agreement, arrayed 
themselves on either side. On the one side, 
the destructive critics, who inferred that mod- 
ern scholarship had reduced the supernatural- 
ism of Christianity to the minimum, and made 
our religion a matter of moral principle, to 
whom ''the cross of Christ is foolishness," who 
found no place in their theology for atoning 
blood, redeeming grace, and the supernatural 
energy of the Holy Spirit. On the other ex- 
treme, those opposed to modern scholarship 
insisted upon literal interpretation ; clinging to 
traditions, relying upon mechanical processes, 
unsconsciously discounting great fundamentals 
and the gifts of the Divine Spirit. These to- 
gether paralyzed the life of the Church, and 
destroyed the spirit of genuine evangelism ; for 
while the Gospel, robbed of the supernatural, 
has absolutely no power of evangelization, so, 
on the other hand, the Gospel which is confined 
to peculiar formulas and mechanical processes 
is utterly incapable of adaptation to the chang- 
ing conditions of life and society. 
Scientific While it is unquestionably true 
Spirit. ^^^^ Christian men of science have 
increased in numbers during the latter part of 
this period, and the scientific spirit is more in 



An AnaIvYSis. 25 

s}anpathy with Christianity than ever before, 
nevertheless this close contact, and the attempt 
at a fuller reconciliation of science and religion, 
has had a severe influence upon the experi- 
mental features of Christianity. It was inevi- 
table that the emotional element, formerly so 
great a factor, should be modified by larger 
knowledge and greater dependence upon intel- 
lectual processes. As a result, much of the 
fervor born of the emotional is, among a large 
class, not at a premium, and in many instances 
discounted in favor of careful, judicial conclu- 
sions ; so that religion, with some, takes on the 
aspect of a cold, mathematical problem. 
Commercial '^'hc commcrcial spirit of the time 
Spirit. jg another force before which the 
evangelistic life has succumbed. The Protestant 
Evangelical Churches have grown rich, and 
have naturally grown worldly with their in- 
creasing wealth. Previous to this period the 
world had not become intoxicated with the 
"get-rich-quick" idea so prevalent now, and 
there was no thought of making the Church 
the means of commercial advancement. But in 
this age of overpowering commercial spirit all 
interests have come to be considered in terms 
of revenue ; even the pulpit, in some instances, 



26 The: Evangelistic Awake:ning. 

has become a matter of dollars and cents, and, 
besides being bartered off for such, is so com- 
pletely under the control of the commercial 
ideas dominating the pew that its real pro- 
phetic note is hushed, and that pungency of 
truth which accompanies the preaching of a 
man whose convictions are untrammeled, and 
which arouses the world and promotes aggres- 
sive evangelization, is greatly modified. 

Perfunctory ^^ ^hc abscucc of distiuct diffcr- 
service. ^j^ccs bctwecn the Church and the 
world, the cross is lifted with little pain, and 
largely smothered in roses. The Christian life 
is made accessible over smooth and thornless 
paths, and relieved of the genuine tests of for- 
saking all to follow Christ. This has ushered 
in an era of easy-going Christianity, making 
Christian service formal and perfunctory, hav- 
ing extracted from it that intense spirit 
which, in other days, gave the Church that 
strange influence which neither criticism nor 
opposition could resist. 

Indifferent Through the grafting of selfish- 

^^^'^- ness into the life of the Church, the 

compromising spirit of its members, and the 

timid spirit of the pulpit, the small fraction of 

time and the slight measure of enthusiasm 



An AnaIvYSis. 27 

given by Christians to the service of Christ, 
in these times when life is most strenuous in 
all other respects, and we are committed in 
•slavish fashion to public affairs, business pur- 
suits, and social pleasures, men are not per- 
suaded of the urgency of Christianity, and the 
thoughtless world becomes sealed with the 
spirit of indifference. 

Evangelism Aud morc alarming by far than 
m Disfavor. ^^^ actual couditious here outlined 
is the fact that evangelism itself, the only pos- 
sible remedy for them, has come into disfavor. 
The multiplication of professional evangelists, 
and the abuse of the evangelistic method by 
confining it to periodic and spasmodic efforts; 
the unstable and unsatisfactory results that to 
so great a degree have followed these services, 
in many instances amounting to reaction; the 
disreputable methods, neither healthy nor sane, 
of so large a class of these men; the tendency 
toward fanaticism dividing Churches and es- 
tablishing sects, — have caused large numbers 
of intelligent and earnest ministers and 
Churches to become prejudiced against the 
entire evangelistic movement, and no saving 
substitute has been offered. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE AWAKENING. 



1. Notes of Alarm. 

2. The Pulpit Awakening. 

3. The Religious Press. 

4. Declarations of Educators and Reformers. 

5. The Laity Aroused. 

6. Call of Mission Fields. 



CHAPTe:r II. 

THE AWAKENING. 

Notes of ThErD is no better sign of a gen- 
Aiarm. ^^^j awakening than the fact that 
the Church has become aware of the conditions, 
and is arousing itself and sending forth a note 
of alarm concerning the actual state of affairs 
and its apparent helplessness in the face of 
them. For the last decade the Church has be- 
come greatly concerned on account of its in- 
ability to reach the masses of people in our 
great cities; it is little more than holding its 
own anywhere, and in many instances not suc- 
ceeding even in this. Saloons, clubs, and social 
orders move in and hold forth in splendid array, 
with increasing patronage, often in the very 
heart of cities; while the Church yields its 
ground, moves to a more favorable situation 
and more sympathetic surroundings. Multi- 
tudes throng our cities from foreign lands with 
unchristian principles; modern institutions of 
vice organize and sustain themselves; and the 

31 



32 The; EvanG]e:ustic Awaki:ning. 

Church stands in the face of these, more over- 
come than overcoming. The small towns and 
rural sections, in many instances, are quite as 
degenerate, and almost as little affected by 
evangelizing influences. Indeed, in many in- 
stances, the Church finds itself unable to per- 
form successfully the work of evangelization 
to the extent of reaching the boys and girls 
and young people of her own society, Sunday- 
school, and homes, and save them for Christ 
and the Church. 

Another significant fact to which the Church 
is awakening is, that notwithstanding the large 
numbers of Churches, and the people of wealth 
and influence allied with the same, she seems 
powerless to grapple with the evils of commu- 
nities, even where Church members largely pre- 
dominate. Still further, notwithstanding the 
emphasis placed upon the brotherhood of man 
and the principles of human equality, for which 
the Church is largely responsible, she never- 
theless stands almost helpless in the face of the 
strained conditions of the civil and industrial 
world ; unable to complete her task of inaugu- 
rating among men a practical brotherhood. 

And, most appalling of all, as we stand at 
the door of the new century we find every na- 



The: Awakening. 33 

tion of darkness open before us, bidding us 
enter; with almost every barrier removed, the 
thing for which through these years the Church 
has been praying, and now finds itself unable 
to meet the demands of the answer to its own 
prayer ; overwhelmed by the insufficiency of its 
resources by lack of consecration of money, of 
talent, and of life for the world's evangeliza- 
tion. These are among the best evidences in 
general of an evangelistic awakening. 
The Pulpit When the prophetic note ceases to 
Awakeningr. souud from the Christian pulpit the 
world may look out for a general decline in re- 
ligion. From the standpoint of the pulpit we 
have been passing through a peculiar period 
for the last two decades. The Church has often 
found itself unable to secure congregations as 
formerly ; preachers, feeling the embarrassment 
of the situation, unwilling to take the blame 
upon themselves, and unable to throw it upon 
their people, have resorted, often with the ap- 
proval of their members, to novel methods of 
retaining their congregations. Many of the 
people, growing rich with the prosperity of 
these years, have cared only for the Church as 
a means of respectability, to whom the ministry 
have often yielded and lost their hold. Thus 
3 



34 Th:e: Evangelistic Awake:ning. 

the Churches have been emptied and made 
worldly; they have tied the preacher's hands 
and sealed his lips, until, in some places, forty 
or fifty Churches will not possess enough of 
vital Christian principle, much less of spiritual 
and unselfish purpose, to make the whole force 
equal to a "Gideon's band." And there are 
many faithful pastors whose Churches are so 
situated, or so constituted, or both, that they 
have n't the courage to undertake an evangel- 
istic campaign; and yet are very greatly con- 
cerned, both because they do not want to be 
considered as not believing in such w^ork, and 
because they feel that their Church is drifting 
away from the very heart of Christianity. In 
conversation with a pastor of a prominent 
Church, he said to me, "I do not know what 
I can do; it is useless to plan an old-time re- 
vival service ; my people will not support it, and 
yet I want to do something." This feeling 
among earnest men in such Churches is grow- 
ing more and more; the pulpit is awakening. 
The Reiig- ^^^ ^f the most potent factors in 
ious Press. ^^Q^^[^g organizations and promot- 
ing sentiment in our day, is the public press. 
These men who dictate the matter from the 
editorial chair have the privilege of a wonder- 



The: Awakening. 35 

ful sweep of observation and a general survey 
of the world, unparalleled by any others. They 
are most naturally the first to catch the thought 
of the time and publish abroad the trend of 
sentiment. For the past few years the relig- 
ious press has been sending forth the note of 
alarm, furnishing facts and figures, demon- 
strating to the Church its situation, and is now 
announcing repeated prophecies and promises 
of a great religious awakening. 
Educators Whcu the Bible was taken from 

and 

Reformers, the public scliools iu this couutry, 
atheists, infidels, skeptics, and all the godless 
world rejoiced in an apparent triumph for un- 
belief, and in a great antichristian victory. But 
it was only apparent. While we may never 
see the Bible restored to the school-room, we 
shall never see its principles excluded from the 
teacher's desk. We will see renewed interest 
in Bible knowledge as a fundamental part of 
education, as men more and more realize the 
urgency of these principles in the completion 
of education ; which must be considered in the 
light of character as well as knowledge. 

Hence increased emphasis is placed upon re- 
ligious home training, and vastly augmented 
is the devotion to these ideals in the Sunday- 



36 The Evangelistic Awakexixg. 

school. The failure of the Church in these re- 
spects has started, through the leading educat- 
ors of the land, ''The Religious Education 
Society,'' whose aim is to keep the great 
saving truths of Christianity more fully and 
intelligently before the young and grow- 
ingly informed age. 

Touching this phase of the situation, noth- 
ing is more significant than the new trend given 
to the study of psychology, and this by men 
the most brilliant in the land. Professor James, 
of Harvard, from a purely scientific standpoint, 
writes his remarkable book on "Varieties of 
Religious Experience/' The brilliant rising 
psychologist, Professor Coe, of the North- 
western, is giving himself largely to this phase 
of psycholog}" ; his books on religious education 
are working a marked transformation through 
such statements as these : ''The making over 
of men can never be an}1;hing more than a nec- 
essary addendum or necessary preliminary to the 
central process of making men/' "The world 
is saved chiefly through Christ's influence upon 
childhood/' G. Stanley Hall said several years 
ago in our hearing substantially this : "]\Iodern 
scientific religious scholarship is leading us di- 
rectly back to what is now commonly called 



The: Awake:ning. 37 

^old-fashioned conversion' as the only safe basis 
of moral life and character." 

In the realm of reformers in general there is 
the growing admission, at least, that "neither 
legislation nor constitution, though they can do 
something, can change the leopard's spots. 
. . . Any permanent solution of the diffi- 
culty must include a change in the general cur- 
rent of motive, a reversal of the accepted pre- 
supposition. Society must have a new heart. 
The whole industrial body is sick for want 
of it;'' and there is a return from all de- 
partments of thought touching the world's 
sores, to Horace Bushnell's unique state- 
ment, "The soul of all improvement is the 
improvement of the soul." 

i^aity Consecrated laymen of large in- 

Awakemngr. fl^eucc are here and there rising up 
to assert the need of the hour, and are not only 
giving theirs, but themselves in service as lead- 
ers of the people. Great conventions and 
schools of method, whose attendance is largely 
on the increase, are studying, from the ministry 
down through every rank of leadership, the 
best possible means of reaching the people with 
evangelizing effort. "It is also true beyond 
question that more effort has been put forth in 



38 Thi: Evange:i.istic Awake:ning. 

the building of church edifices than in building 
up souls for God's kingdom. Costly edifices 
have been multiplied, monuments of stone and 
brick, frequently only pride stimulators, while 
the greater work of securing, through an equal 
effort, monuments of God's grace, has been neg- 
lected." Said Comptroller Coler, of New York 
City : '1 believe the great masses of the people 
in our great cities are away from the churches 
simply because the churches are away from 
them. It is a waste of money to build a two- 
hundred-thousand-dollar church, and then use 
it only once or twice a week.'' 

ivnssion The results of our mission fields, 

^eids. ^vhich have opened up so widely and 
invitingly and attracted and absorbed the atten- 
tion and devotion of the Church at large, have 
been due almost entirely to evangelistic meth- 
ods. The great revivals in India and elsewhere 
under the influence of a simple but profound 
evangelism have not only opened the way, but 
emphasized to all the supreme importance of 
this principle, if the kingdom is to fill the earth. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE OUTLOOK. 



1. What of the Night? 

2. Evangelistic Crisis. 

3. Signs of Hope. 

4. Less Defending of the Faith. 

5. Acceptance of a Gospel of Evangelism. 

6. In Spite of the Cross. 

7. A Universal Feeling and Movement 

39 



CHAPTER III. 

THE OUTLOOK. 

"Watchman! what of the night? does the 
morning dawn ?" I am not a pessimist ; I can 
not be ; my faith in God is too much wrapt up 
with the Divine declaration that sets forth the 
unfaiHng mission of Jesus Christ upon earth. 
For as I stand in the presence of the risen Lord 
before the challenge, ''Reach hither thy hand, 
and thrust it into My side,'' and I respond, 
*'My Lord and my God," I must believe in His 
triumph and dominion. And let no one think 
that the world is indifferent at heart, when 
once it is aroused to the interest of the king- 
dom of Jesus Christ; for from beneath the 
strife, the rush, and rivalry of an apparently 
unbelieving and indifferent world, there is 
breathed from humble altars and humbler fire- 
sides, from earnest souls far removed from cen- 
ters, and also from the busy marts of trade, 
the eager cry, "Watchman, what of the night ?'' 
Far down beneath the burning, seething, selfish 

41 



42 The Evangelistic Awakening. 

surface, this old world is still concerned, and 
silently prays, ''Thy kingdom come.'' 

There are signs of hope. But, I pray you, 
do not blind your vision, as so many heretofore 
have done, by demanding what kinds of signs 
shall appear and what the coming revival shall 
mean; for when your eyes are opened to the 
mountains filled with horses and chariots, if 
they are not such fiery visions as you had an- 
ticipated, it may be they are God's horses and 
God's chariots, and as surely His agencies or- 
dained for Israel's redemption. 

If you expect any prophet of God in these 
days to arise and declare to you the coming of 
a revival of religion that shall, in all respects, 
repeat the characteristics of those gone by, you 
are to be disappointed; and if those striking 
such notes catch your ear, beware of them: 
they are either uninformed as to God's methods 
or the actual signs of the times. 

God does not repeat Himself. *1 would 
never pray for an old-fashioned revival, because 
I want God's next new thing. If a man is 
praying for an old-fashioned revival, in all 
probability when God's visitation comes, he will 
not be conscious of it. I can quite imagine 
how, forty years ago, men remembering the 



The: Outlook. 43 

marvelous movement under Finney might have 
prayed for an old-fashioned revival such as that 
which accompanied his preaching. Then it is 
more likely that when God raised up Dwight 
Lyman Moody, such men w^ould be out of sym- 
pathy with all his methods for a long while; 
for the notes of the two movements were ut- 
terly different. Or to go back still further be- 
fore the great awakening under Finney, per- 
haps some prayed for an old-fashioned revival 
like that under Wesley and Whitefield. If so, 
they almost certainly lacked sympathy with the 
new notes at first. God fulfills Himself in 
many ways. In every new awakening there 
are fresh manifestations of God, new unfold- 
ings of truth meeting the requirements of the 
age." "Christ is to be preached to changing 
men under constantly changing conditions. 
The substance of the Gospel lasts, but methods 
change and means vary as conditions are al- 
tered. This universe of ours, so far as we 
know it, is subject to constant change. No two 
tides ever sweep up the beach in the same 
orderly ripple ; no two springtimes dawn in the 
same form after winter's long night; no two 
summer-tides blush toward the autumn in the 
same tints of beauty ; but the great earth itself 



44 The: Evangelistic Awakening. 

still swings to and fro, jarless and noiseless. 
The great sun is still found in his appointed 
place at the proper hour, and the whole uni- 
verse, moving through infinite space, keeps 
harmony with itself. So Jesus Christ is the 
same ; the same yesterday, to-day, and forever ; 
so the Christianity of Christ is the same, yester- 
day, to-day, and forever; so the Church 
founded by the Christ and by Christianity is 
the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever.'' The 
old-time spectacular may never appear. In 
form and method the old-time revival will not 
be repeated ; but, in spirit and effect, what God 
ever did. He can still do ; and what He can do, 
He will do, if we trust Him. 
Evangelistic ^^r the past decade, at least, the 
cnsis. Church has been face to face with 
an evangelistic crisis. With the revolt in gen- 
eral from dogma and tradition to fundamentals 
in Christian thought and teaching, there has 
been a similar attitude toward the dogmatizing 
methods of unintelligent evangelists. This 
kind of teaching which has emphasized so fre- 
quently some single phase of Christian truth — 
and often notions not even founded on fact — 
has thrown Christian experience and life out 
of balance; has sown dissension in Churches, 



Thk OUTI.OOK. 45 

raised factions, and created an atmosphere in 
which many of the best people have not been 
able to live vi^ith peace. Thus Churches have 
been divided upon matters of very secondary 
moment; and all of this in an age when the 
desire of great Christian bodies has been, as 
never before, toward unity of thought and fed- 
eration of activity, and the burying of slight 
differences in non-essentials. These have de- 
stroyed faith in evangelistic leadership. 

Not less disastrous in its influence upon in- 
telligent and earnest people has been the spirit 
and method of many professional evangelists. 
Their stock in trade has often been their ability 
to say most sarcastic things in abuse of Chris- 
tians, and the extent to which they could please 
the godless world by holding up to ridicule 
members of Christian Churches who did not 
measure up to their particular standard, the 
amount of sensation they could create in a com- 
munity, and the large number of people they 
could persuade under pressure to confess 
Christ ; so great a percentage of whom no ear- 
nest pastor could possibly mature into a genu- 
ine Christian life and ally actively with the 
Church. 

These conditions and practices had obtained 



46 Th]^ EVANGE^USTIC AwAKEiNING. 

SO extensively that in many communities it had 
become practically impossible to secure the at- 
tendance of the most respected people of the 
outside world upon evangelistic services. They 
had lost their faith in the sincerity of the men, 
the propriety of their methods, and were not 
willing to be caught in their traps. "Much of 
the discredit thrown upon the earnest expres- 
sion of religion comes from an honest revulsion 
of feeling from those who have made the re- 
vival a trade. The very name Revivalist' has 
often taken an unworthy meaning." With this 
revolt from unbalanced teaching, and revulsion 
from crude methods, the danger has been that 
the Church, for lack of intelligent, earnest, spir- 
itual leadership, by which to find the happy 
medium in teaching and method that would 
appeal to all classes of people and be effective 
in reaching them, would drift into a mere eth- 
ical trend, and lose the supreme factor for 
Christianizing the world: that quickening 
power by which spirituality is sustained and 
the Church is made a conquering force. If we 
shall be able under the guidance of that spirit 
not confined to any age or method, but given 
for all time, to lead into all truth ; to pass into 
the "new era/' stripped though we may be of 



The; Outi^ook. 47 

much that has been more a burden than an 
inspiration, a source of controversy rather than 
a means of support ; believing more in God than 
what is said about Him, less in a traditional 
or dogmatic Christ, and far more in a historic 
and living Christ, — then there will be hope for 
the Church and the world. 

General, far-reaching, and abiding revivals 
that move the entire Christian world are peri- 
odical; not altogether because of an actual de- 
cline in religion preceding them, but because 
such are generated, not alone by new zeal and 
new methods, but by a new and perhaps better 
view of truth. The Wesleyan revival was 
promoted largely by the new vision of God's 
impartial plan of redemption and of the possi- 
bility of direct Christian consciousness. It was 
a revolution in religious thought that swung 
the Christian Church entirely away from its 
former moorings, and it has required these 
years of the Church's normal life to adjust it 
to an acceptance of these new views as a work- 
ing basis. For as surely as "primitive Chris- 
tianity had to disappear that Christianity might 
remain,'' so in every revolutionary period of 
Christian history Christianity has had to shake 
itself of much of its trappings, born of peculiar 



48 The Evangelistic Awakening. 

periods, in order to survive; for in any age 
when the letter of things gets a greater hold 
upon the people than the spirit of them, be it 
with much controversy and strife, and even 
sense of loss, the letter must be subordinated 
to the spirit, and truth must again become su- 
perior to doctrine and method. 

There is no doubt that the present basis 
of Christian thought is such as to enable a 
stronger and more comprehensive e\'angelistic 
■ movement than has ever before touched the 
world. The Church itself is better equipped 
from the standpoint of the reasonableness of its 
doctrinal positions, and also in consideration 
of the generally increased Christian intelli- 
gence, the popular position of Christian truth, 
and the material furnishings with which to do 
the work of seeking and saving the lost. The 
destructive period has lost to us nothing funda- 
mental, but has set in better surroundings the 
essential truths, and cleared away a vast volume 
of traditional impedimenta. We have now en- 
tered upon the constructive period. The time 
has arrived for those in possession of leadership 
to show by actual product the possibilities of 
reaching and saving the world ; and leaders are 
becoming conscious that the newer thought 



The: OUTI.OOK. 49 

must be able to bring with it a new life, and 
the vastly increased machinery must be brought 
under the dominance of a new power, or of 
the old power renewed. 
Signs of Rising out of the mist and uncer- 

^^^®* tainty of this crisis there are signs 
of hope. First of all, because, even with the 
apparent decline in evangelistic movements, it 
is clearly evident that the ideals of Christianity 
are not only in a better setting, but have a 
stronger hold upon the world than ever before ; 
so that, even during this changing and unset- 
tled period, we have been moving farther away 
from the cruder interpretations of Christianity, 
and coming nearer to the very first principles 
of the Master. And while we have been drop- 
ping out some of the machinery for which there 
seems to be no further use, and returning to a 
simpler form of the kingdom, it is a form less 
of theory, but far more vital. In other words, 
there is evidence that we are beginning over 
again with the ideas that operated in the early 
organization of the Christian forces, when they 
"added to the Church daily such as should be 
saved." Our reason for believing that this is 
a hopeful sign is, that it puts us upon the most 
permanent basis of Christian effort; for if the 
4 



50 The: Evangs^listic Awakening. 

ultimate goal of Christianity is a kingdom such 
as the Master outHned, then the ultimate 
agency, whether Church or society, must be 
a band of Christian men and women with firm 
purpose, fine sensibilities, bound together in the 
simplest form, to do what the Master, first 
teaching by precept and by example, commis- 
sioned His disciples to do when He sent them 
forth. Two things characterized the Church 
in the beginning : a personal devotion to Christ 
which kindled zeal for others; and the accom- 
paniment of a Divine power (the Holy Spirit), 
illuminating, directing, and also melting the 
opposing forces, which gave the disciples con- 
fidence in the Christ and His Gospel. The 
Christian Church is fast learning that "devo- 
tion to Christ is the dynamic of Christianity," 
and that individual work through loyalty to 
Him is not only natural, but inevitable; it is 
also learning concerning organization, that 
spiritual warmth and power resulting from in- 
formally assembled personalities "of one ac- 
cord" is yet to be the leaven of the earth. 
i.es8 Defend- Another hopeful sigfn is in the 

lug of the . . . . 

Faith. more mtelhgent Christian teachmg. 
The ministry of to-day, in remote places as 
well as in centers, in small as well as great 



Tn^ OuTi^ooK. 51 

Churches, have a better preparation for their 
very responsible mission of teaching the Gospel 
of Christ in its completeness. The hobby-riders 
of the past are fast betaking themselves to 
those insignificant sects that subsist on these 
things, while these denominations themselves 
are gradually disappearing under the influence 
of a truer conception of faith and life. The 
evangelist or pastor who claims some peculiar 
gift, a kind of patent right on truth and 
experience, is no longer much in demand; 
for the people are finding a ''better way," 
and the world is looking toward the Church 
of Christ with a larger degree of confi- 
dence, because of the greater emphasis placed 
upon what men do, and how they live, as 
the real evidence of conversion. 
Acceptance There are evidences on every 

of Gospel of 

Evangelism, hand of the acceptance of, and re- 
newed desire for, an evangelistic gospel. "For 
some of us the old evangelism has lost its 
power. Many of you have felt, as I certainly 
have, that a great gulf has been digged between 
culture and evangelistic fervor. Our gener- 
ation has known but one man to whom the two 
things were blended — Henry Drummond. Pro- 
fessor Drummond was a scientist, a theisti^ 



52 The: Evange:ustic Awake^ning. 

evolutionist, but, first of all and above all, he 
was an evangelist. In him culture and fervor 
were united in ideal relations. He had the in- 
tellect of the scholar; he had also the flaming 
heart of an apostle. And now that Drummond 
has gone, we have all longed for a man who 
would preach the great simplicities, and em- 
body evangelism plus reasonableness." This 
statement coming from a man of such tenden- 
cies of thought, and such a position of influ- 
ence, is extremely significant; and we believe 
it is only an indication of what is felt by other 
men in the Christian pulpits similarly situated. 
We speak from experience as well as observa- 
tion, and say that we believe men are ready as 
never before to accept an evangelistic gospel 
which appeals to the best that is in them, and 
magnifies the saving of human life. 
In Spite of We must take into consideration 
the Cross. ^^^^ j^ ^^^^^ ccrtaiu classes of people 

to ally themselves with a genuine evangelistic 
type of Christianity. The all-absorbing com- 
mercial life in these days of exceeding material 
prosperity, and the strife and rivalry in the 
commercial and industrial world, are paralyz- 
ing in the extreme to the Sermon on the Mount. 
The excessive luxury of social life, and the f ri- 



The Outi^ook. 53 

volities and worldliness attendant upon it, hedge 
the way to the real life of apostleship with Jesus 
in seeking and saving the lost; yet from the 
ranks of the striving, self-seeking world, both 
of commerce and society, are coming in increas- 
ing numbers those who, in spite of the cross, 
have become enamored of the spirit of the Mas- 
ter, and are anxious to go about doing good. 
The more intelligent so-called middle classes, 
wearying of the everlasting round of pleasure, 
realizing its utter emptiness, are not only favor- 
able to, but show an eagerness for, an evangel- 
ism that comes with the tyiessage of a "life 
more abundant," offering not mere negations 
but positive features that enrich the soul and 
make life worth living. It must be evident to 
all that in the most vital sense the evangelism 
of to-day is more exacting than ever before, 
because it emphasizes "obedience rather than 
sacrifice,'' and demands the doing of God's will 
if men are to find Him and know Him. It 
declares that the way of the cross is not a mere 
sentiment, the highest expression of which is 
in raising the hand, standing in public, or even 
coming to the sacred altar, but in surrendering 
one's self to do the most Christ-like things of 
a self-denying religion. When in the face of 



54 Thk Evange:i,istic Awaki:ning. 

this ruggedness and even rigidness of demands, 
people from all ranks, with Paul, count not 
their lives dear to themselves, but yield them- 
selves so completely to this sublime ideal of 
^'he that loseth his life shall find it'' until, with 
him, they can say, ''For to me to live is Christ/' 
is a splendid token of the prevailing power 
of evangelistic Christianity. 
A Universal That there are signs hopeful of 

Feeling and , . . - 

Movement, a Widespread and universal revival 
is in no way better indicated than by what ap- 
pears to be a universal feeling and movement 
throughout the entire Christian world. De- 
nominations like the ]\Iethodist and smaller 
bodies of the same principles and spirit, who 
are by their very traditions committed to evan- 
gelism, have been seriously lamenting, and se- 
verely arraigning themselves for failure in in- 
creasing their membership. In some instances 
they have been obliged to reckon with a net 
loss. The General Conference of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, moved by the situation, 
has appointed a Commission on Aggressive 
Evangelism, which is intended to arouse the 
whole great Church to an earnest forward 
movement. The Presbyterian Church for the 
last few years has been more active, perhaps, 



The: Outlook. 55 

than any other denomination, adopting many 
of the Methodist practices of evangehsm till 
some Churches of this staid body have taken 
on fervor that has put to shame the Methodists ; 
while the Congregationalists, hardest of all 
perhaps to bring to the consideration of the 
need of real aggressive evangelism, are treating 
it in their councils as the supreme issue, and 
starting movements of an evangelistic order 
even in their most ethically buttressed centers. 
As surely as the singing of the robin in 
springtime^ the pushing of the blade of grass 
and the tiny shrub from beneath the crusted 
earth, anticipate the coming of summer, so 
surely this urgency of the Christian world to 
throw off the mantle of indifference and lift 
itself from the burden of commercial interests, 
and to sing a new note of cheer and hope, is an 
unquestioned promise of the full springtime of 
new life, with ''showers of refreshing from the 
presence of the Lord." 



PartH. 

PRESENT-DAY EVAN- 
GELISM. 



INTRODUCTION. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Not a little is being said in these days in 
criticism of the term "present-day evangelism." 
Nevertheless it is just as fair to use the term 
"present-day evangelism," and just as neces- 
sary in order to be thoroughly understood, as 
to talk of present-day education and present- 
day commerce. Education is still education, 
and commerce is still commerce. Resources 
behind them, necessity for them, principles gov- 
erning them, may not have changed, but the 
method of conducting them, the product or ex- 
pression, have so vastly changed that there is 
a new education and a new commerce. 

So divine resources may not change, and 
human needs do not change; but no one will 
be so foolish as to contend that the mode of 
Christian operation and the outward expres- 
sions of religious life have not changed; there 
is a new theology, and there is a new evangel- 
ism. Not because God has changed, or man 
has changed, but because environment has 
changed ; hence methods must change, and ex- 
ex 



62 Th^ Evangelistic Awakening. 

pressions will change. The term ^'present-day 
evangelism" is simply an accommodated phrase 
to distinguish the method and expression from 
former times for the purpose of a better under- 
standing. Evangelism is not Christianity; it 
is the Christian force in operation as the means 
of generating and extending Christianity. So 
when men fear the term ''new evangelism'' they 
seem to conceive that the disturbing of evangel- 
ism is the disturbing of Christianity; just as 
many people feared that the Revised Version 
of the Bible was dangerous, because to change 
any interpretations was disastrous, though the 
new version brought God far nearer. They 
mistake the written word for the living God, 
and the book that reveals religion for religion 
itself. So some criticise "new evangelism," be- 
cause they make evangelism to mean Chris- 
tianity rather than a means of furthering Chris- 
tianity. 

We must understand that the whole setting 
of human thought and life has changed; that 
the religious problems which perplexed the 
world a quarter or half century ago are not 
the problems of to-day. Whatever of skepti- 
cism there is, is a skepticism that can never be 
met by the old statements and arguments. And 



Introduction. 63 

so far as determining what conduct is necessary 
to the Christian life, we must appreciate that 
the weights that have to be laid aside, and the 
customs that have to be sacrificed, are not the 
same in all ages, and that the entrances to heart 
and life are not the same. The evangelist who 
will reach the mind of to-day must often seek 
a new avenue, and he who would appeal to the 
heart, move the feelings, and persuade to ac- 
tion, must use other means to break the fetters 
of sin that bind. 

It requires only a glance to see the reason- 
ableness of this. Touching the unbelief of the 
intellect, we readily observe that bold, denying, 
and denouncing atheism is substantially a thing 
of the past. It is only an inquiring doubt or 
a stumbling faith that we have to meet. The 
hitherto apparent conflict between science and 
religion has disappeared ; both because of a bet- 
ter science and a saner conception of religion 
from the standpoint of a less literal interpreta- 
tion of Scripture, there is no more conflict. 
The problem is no longer that of the despised 
Nazarene and unpopular position of Chris- 
tianity, but the compromising spirit of a nom- 
inal Christianity. And there are such vast 
modifications of many minor features of Chris- 



64 The: Evange^listic Awaki^ning. 

tianity that it becomes necessary to consider 
how men look upon the Christian life. The 
evidences demanded are not as formerly. In 
Jesus' time the common people were especially 
impressed by the miraculous, — nothing else 
seemed to satisfy; so in most periods past of 
great revivals, the masses were mostly influ- 
enced by the supernaturalness of the work, the 
unusual occurrences ; but the mass of men care 
little for that to-day ; they ask for a simple but 
straightforward face about, of the Zaccheus 
type. 

Inasmuch as evangelism is the method of 
the kingdom, those who apply it must be will- 
ing and able to make all needful modifications 
in order to meet the conditions of life, — "all 
things to all men;" hence the term "present- 
day evangelism." 



CHAPTER I. 

THE PROFESSIONAL EVANGELIST. 



1. His Place in the Church. 

2. He may be a Dangerous Man. 

3. He must not be a Self-Seeker. 

4. He should be a Leader. 

5. His Future Usefulness, 



CHAPTER I. 

THE PROFESSIONAL EVANGELIST. 

Inasmuch as the professional evangelist is 
a part of the present evangelistic method, this 
seems to be the proper place for a brief consid- 
eration of his relation to present-day evangel- 
ism. No one will speak lightly of the evangelist 
if his position is properly defined and his work 
honorably pursued. 

The evangelist had a place in the functions 
of the ministry of the early Church, in which 
^*He gave some, apostles; He gave some, 
prophets ; He gave some, evangelists ; He gave 
some, pastors and teachers.'' It is true, the 
work of the evangelist at that time is by no 
means clearly defined, and it is also true beyond 
question that his office was inferior from the 
standpoint of gifts and of authority, yet it was 
a part of the divinely ordered ministry of the 
early Christian Church; and whatever may be 
said in reflection upon the orders of ministry 
worked out by a later hierarchy, the simple 

67 



68 Thk EvANGKi^isTic Awakening. 

forms of ministry instituted in the days of the 
apostles will ever hold their place of relative 
importance in the Christian world so long as 
an organized Church and a formal ministry 
are necessary to the kingdom of God. Best 
authorities have inferred that the evangelist 
was a detached man of lesser gifts and author- 
ity ; going about as a missionary among the un- 
churched, or a helper of pastors. The depar- 
ture of modern evangelism from this standard 
is in the self-constituted evangelist, rather than 
by authority and appointment of the Church, 
as other forms of ministry. This has caused 
this entire department of the ministry to be 
depreciated, and has greatly diminished the 
force of the office, as well as crippled the work 
of evangelism. 

But we must not attach all the blame to the 
evangelist; for as surely as the Church is 
largely what the ministry make it, so the 
Church must create its ministry; and when it 
complains of self-appointed evangelists it must 
remember that this has been due to the failure 
of the Church to raise up, call, and appoint to 
her ministry men of gifts and graces, and make 
provision for them in her economy, or train an 
evangelistic ministry in her regular orders ; for, 



The; Proi^e:ssionaIv Evange^ust. 69 

in spite of her complaints, she has been so lack- 
ing in consecration to evangelism that for a 
quarter of a century these men have been in 
many instances her only salvation. 

The professional evangelist has occupied a 
large place and had no little part in the evangel- 
izing mission of the Church; so much so, that 
he has seemed to be almost indispensable. But 
a reaction has set in, and the Church is coming 
to feel that, while much of his labor has been 
attended by good results, on the whole he has 
left the Church in a chronic, sickly state, which 
demands periodic attendance upon his part, and 
can do nothing without him ; therefore revivals 
under his leadership have, of late, largely di- 
minished. And yet for this condition the evan- 
gelist must not be held altogether responsible; 
for certainly the Church, as a whole, with its 
members, officials, and various ranks of min- 
istry, ought to be greater than this detached 
portion, and she must be responsible for her 
lack of faith, enterprise, and consecration to 
this great work of evangelization ; for she has 
never at any time through this period yielded 
the conviction that the world must be evan- 
gelized, and yet she has been willing, ap- 
parently, to commit this work to men whose 



70 The Evange:i.istic Awakening. 

methods, on the whole, she has not favored 
and has often severely criticised. 
He May Be The cvangclist mav become a dan- 

a Dangrerous , 

Man. gerous man by virtue of the very 
peculiar power which is his. He is always such 
when he makes himself indispensable to the 
Church. The revolt against the evangelist, in 
the last decade or more, has been due almost 
entirely to the feeling which he has created by 
trying to make himself indispensable. He has 
gone to the Church, and often left it with an 
effort to convey the impression that nothing of 
a truly evangelistic order can possibly be ac- 
complished apart from him. He may do this 
by assuming entire leadership, which in many 
instances makes him almost a dictator, while 
there. He may do it by insisting also upon his 
particular patent methods as the only way in 
which men may be saved. He may become a 
menace to both the ministry and the Church by 
assuming, if not asserting, that he preaches the 
Gospel while most of the preachers do not; 
if he annuls all truth that is not stamped with 
his own peculiar seal of orthodoxy, if he takes 
delight in belittling the present-day ministry, 
and in berating the Church life. 

That w^s a very fitting prayer the dear old 



The: Pro^e:ssionai, Evange:i.ist 71 

brother offered when the evangeHst, having 
lost patience, discoursed for a half hour to 
the Official Board, scoring them most se- 
verely; then called upon this good official 
brother, who offered the following: *Xord, 
forgive the dear brother for the mean things 
he has said about us. Amen/' 
He Must Not An cvangcHst may be made of the 

Be a Self- ^ ^ a 

Seeker, samc clay as other folks, a man 
of like passions'' and desires. He may be a 
man of possibilities and responsibilities, but he 
must keep ever to the front a self-sacrificing 
spirit. Nothing more disqualifies a preacher 
than selfishness, and in no other class of the 
ministry is this so noticeable as among those 
sent especially to rescue the perishing. Not 
long ago scores of people walked from a burn- 
ing building, and escaped death upon a bridge 
of human lives. Genuine evangelism comes 
only by a real incarnation that involves sacri- 
fice and risk : "Though rich, He became poor,'" 
counting not even His life dear unto Himself, 
and went all the way to Calvary ; and the man 
who can not impress a people with the heroic, 
self-denying spirit in his efforts to save them, 
will not be able to persuade them to a better 
life. Therefore, the evangelist who is exacting 



^2 The: Evangeustic Awakening. 

of money and can not make terms with 
Churches that will make it possible to disregard 
largely all money considerations in time of 
services, or trust the free-will offering of the 
people, is not likely to succeed. We well re- 
member the self-denying spirit of an appar- 
ently devoted pastor who was giving himself 
to evangelistic work, surrendering a first-class 
pulpit with substantial salary; and we thought 
it heroic; but in less than six months no 
Churches were large enough to give him suit- 
able support, and in a very few years it was 
reported he was earning three times as much 
as when in the regular ministry, having refused 
to go anywhere without a large stipulation and 
great union services. When such a man is 
gone, it is likely to be felt that his work was 
greatly modified by his selfishness. 
He Should An evangelist must have the qual- 
Leader. ities of leadership, although he had 
better not appear too much as such. He cer- 
tainly must not be officious. He should be a 
pleasing preacher, for he is to win ; he must be 
magnetic, for he is to draw ; he must be well- 
balanced, for he is to seal the destiny of people 
by his directions and impressions. He may not 
be a scholar in the broadest sense, but he must 



Th^ Profe:ssionai^ Evange:i.ist. 73 

be intelligent; he should not pose as a teacher 
unless he possesses the wisdom of a teacher; 
that is, the function of a pastor with "line upon 
line." He should never be a debater, but a 
messenger, a herald ; and as such he may be an 
inspiration, a power, and a man in demand. 
His Future ^^ ^^c evangcHst can be more than 
Usefulness. ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ assistaut of pastors 

rather than the man with the reins usurping 
all prerogatives and posing as prophet, teacher, 
and administrator, he will still be a much 
needed and useful man. The evangelist is ca- 
pable of inspiring the Church as no other man 
can. They do not know him ; his very calling 
makes him to them as a "voice in the wilder- 
ness" or a bringer of good tidings. They have 
heard of his great revivals and his big crowds, 
and how the town was moved; they go and 
listen, believe and obey ; they must, for men are 
superstitious, and the leader leads and the mul- 
titudes still flock to the Jordan when a John 
the Baptist stands by its banks. When he 
comes, the people are always expectant, and 
expectancy is no little part of faith. He is 
hopeful as no local pastor can be; he sees 
people at their best, the Church at its best ; his 
faith is not dampened by what a pastor knows ; 



74 The: Evangeustic Awake:ning. 

he IS not embarrassed by the frowns of a con- 
gregation when some speak or pray; he can 
have unusual faith in humanity; and seeing 
continuous results from his ministry, even 
sometimes beyond what is actual, he becomes a 
man of optimism, and carries with him the 
swing of victory. Therefore, the evangelist 
wall still occupy a place of importance in the 
ministry ; and it is hoped the Church will make 
provision for a reasonable number, and lay her 
hands on men of finest spirit and choicest gifts 
with as much of culture as the age requires, 
and set them apart for this work, and keep them 
in close touch with all her interests. For evan- 
gelists will ever be needful in limited numbers ; 
needful to assist overburdened pastors of 
great Churches; necessary occasionally in all 
Churches to usher in a new era of evangelistic 
life, or to lead in capturing a difficult situation ; 
and, having given special attention and had 
wide observation, needful occasionally to fire 
pastors and Churches anew with evangelistic 
zeal. 



CHAPTER II. 
THE MEETINGS. 



1. Special Services. 

2. Protracted Meetings. 

3. The Management of the Meetings. 

4. Physical Attitudes. 

5. Personal Work. 

6. The Man Between. 

7. The Emotions, Their Power. 

8. The Emotions, Their Peril. 

9. The Holy Spirit. 
10. The Appeal. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE MEETINGS. 

It is no unimportant part of the matter to 
decide when to hold meetings, how long to con- 
tinue them, and by what plan to conduct them. 
We remark, first of all, that there are times 
and conditions when special services should 
never be held. A pastor sometimes feels that 
he must do something of an evangelistic order, 
and has little idea, perhaps, that anything will 
result, but announces two or three weeks of 
special services. Special services should never 
be held simply to keep up appearances, for if 
nothing is expected, nothing will be accom- 
plished, and the Church will believe less in re- 
vivals as the result, while the outside world 
moves on with an added degree of indifiference. 
Unless by some exceptionally providential cir- 
cumstance or condition in the Church or com- 
munity, a series of meetings should not be held 
without careful, earnest preparation. It may 
be of two weeks, it may be of two months, or 
it may be of two years ; and if with that prepa- 

77 



78 The: Evange:ustic Awakening. 

ration a revival is not already kindled, do not 
multiply services. In these days of strenuous 
life, multiplying services must be justified either 
by a reasonable consecration upon the part of 
the Church ''to fight it out on this line," or a 
condition in the Church or community which 
makes a revival spontaneous. 

Then, there are Churches in which it would 
be better not to hold a series of meetings for 
three years. We have in mind such a Church 
now, — one of the grand old. Churches in the 
land, which has been declining for some years, 
and, we believe, largely because, being evan- 
gelistic in its nature, it has had evangelists and 
special meetings year after year; sometimes 
holding them for a month, sometimes two or 
three series of meetings in a season, until the 
Church has become the rallying place of a class 
of Christians who feed upon the effervescence 
of emotionalism and are unstable and unreli- 
able; whose zeal quickly burns out and leaves 
them, the remainder of the time, indifferent to 
the most vital interests of the Church. The re- 
vival meeting, under special management and 
high pressure, has created a disease, and there 
is a lack of sturdy, earnest, straightforward 
Christian life and effort as a matter of prin- 



The Mee;tings. 79 

ciple. The people need to be taught, trained, 
built up in systematic devotion, and let evangel- 
ism come normally through ordinary services. 
For a year or two this would be the best kind 
of treatment for such a Church. 

Services should not be held when conditions 
in a community are unfavorable. Sometimes 
an earnest, well-meaning pastor rushes into 
services in the face of conditions of sickness or 
weather or worldly absorptions, that, to say 
the least, greatly disadvantage his work. He 
thinks the Lord's work should not be postponed 
because weather is unfavorable, the people sick 
or absorbed in worldly enterprises ; but a wiser 
pastor will consider these, and use his forces to 
the best advantage. Why not take advantage 
of the lenten season when, at least nominally, 
the Christian world is at its best, and counter 
influences greatly modified? This is much 
better than the Week of Prayer, so-called. 
But even this idea may be overworked un- 
til, among Christians, it has become per- 
functory and lifeless, and, to the world, an 
excuse for every-day religion. 
Protracted "Evcry miuistcr of Jesus Christ 
Meetings. Q^gj^^- occasionally to hold meetings 
where he urges immediate decision, and gives 



8o The; Evangi:ivISTic Awake;ning. 

the opportunity for the same." Yet may not 
the "old protracted meeting" idea be a mistake 
in many Churches ? When we announce a long 
series of services stretching over several weeks, 
are we not faced by two conditions, — ^first, the 
fact that the people who do not care for such 
services determine to take no part, or at least 
wait until they are urged into it from an appeal 
to their loyalty; and another fact, that the ex- 
tended plan fails of immediate concentration 
of people and energy ? 

It would be wise for many pastors who are 
so situated to arrange for a single week of serv- 
ices, culminating on Sunday with a united ef- 
fort of all departments of the Church making 
it a real day of ingathering. Such a service 
could be planned for in the mind of the pastor 
several weeks in advance, with all his effort 
directed toward it, until there prevails a good 
preparatory spirit; then, when the time draws 
near, let an effort be made to entirely pre-empt 
that week, and ask the people to concentrate 
their time and energy for one week only ; thus 
even the indifferent might be persuaded, out 
of loyalty to their pastor, if for no other reason, 
to support it. Let Sunday's work be thor- 
oughly planned ; morning service a strong, con- 



Tut MEETINGS. 8l 

vincing sermon; Sunday-school given over to 
an earnest but judicious evangelistic effort ; the 
teachers well prepared for this; at 3.30 a meet- 
ing for men only, — it can be made very fruit- 
ful in any community; concluding with an en- 
thusiastic evangelistic service at night. This 
plan, of course, would not make impossible the 
announcement on Sunday of another week of 
services, if the interest should warrant it; for 
the people will be glad by this time to continue, 
if results are sufficiently in evidence. We have 
tried this plan in a number and variety of places 
with excellent results, and with a greatly im- 
proved feeling toward revival meetings upon 
the part of the community ; leaving an impres- 
sion that the Church is alive, and does not have 
to be "worked up" to a revival pitch by several 
weeks of "hammering away." 
The Man- There are two extreme conditions 
agement. j^^ general that need to be avoided. 
One is a stiff formality that paralyzes by its 
frigidness. If there is any particular religious 
service in which there should be life, warmth, 
and spontaneity, it ought to be in a revival 
service. Nothing is surer to kill such a service 
than formal and measured music, long, lifeless 
prayers, and dogmatic, prosy sermons. These 
6 



82 ThS EvANGi:i.ISTlC AwAKE:nING. 

do not create an atmosphere that makes it easy 
for men to break to the freedom of a new life. 

On the other hand, we are convinced that 
there has been quite as much injury in the 
crude, boisterous informahty with which such 
services have often been conducted. A reason- 
able amount of dignity is necessary to any re- 
ligious service that is to be of lasting virtue. 
Men sometimes step so far beneath the dignity 
of Church and pulpit in their method of ad- 
vertising and conducting services, that, in their 
determined attempt to ^'popularize the services, 
they simply vulgarize them." We have had 
"cyclone evangelists," who run over the backs 
of the pews and strain every physical power to 
attract attention, and the people go as they go 
to the theater. Some are caught, but a multi- 
tude are disgusted, and the Church and religion 
greatly depreciated. Some attempt funny sto- 
ries, make men laugh and then cry; but when 
a thoughtful person has retired from such serv- 
ice, although he may have joined in it all, he 
is disgusted with reflection, for he knows this 
is no part of religion. 

To conduct a service by ingeniously and at- 
tractively advertising it, by making it warm, 
inviting, and lively, even to the point of enthu- 



Thb M^e:tings. 83 

siasm, and yet keep it within the bounds of 
propriety and dignity, should be the careful 
study of every evangelist; for only then can 
you secure results on the one hand, and main- 
tain continued confidence on the other. 
Physical There are certain physical atti- 
Attitudes. ^^(Jg5 which have been used to great 
advantage in assisting men to the submission 
of life and the exercise of faith which issue in 
conversion ; and in so far as these are used with 
a clear understanding of their significance, their 
use is justified; for it is the policy of Chris- 
tianity to make the way as accessible as possi- 
ble, adopting all legitimate expediences, or be- 
coming "all things to all men/' The altar serv- 
ice has possibly been utilized to as much advan- 
tage as any other agency. There is about it a 
religious appropriateness, something in keeping 
with the seriousness of the moment. It has 
been fundamental to religious worship. But 
even the altar service should be guarded lest 
too much importance be attached to a mere 
form. It should never be made a place where 
special premium is offered to those who seek 
salvation. Indeed, it is a grave mistake to at- 
tach so much importance to any physical atti- 
tude. So great a matter as personal salvation 



84 The: EvANGDusTic Awakening. 

should never hinge upon a place or a posture; 
if it does, doubt and uncertainty are likely to 
follow. Extreme urgency should also be care- 
fully guarded against. There are fitting times 
for insistence and importunity; but this must 
be with great discretion, or it will react upon 
the individual or meeting. Invitations in pub- 
lic and standing tests have their places reason- 
ably utilized; but they have been overworked, 
until now, in many places, it is difficult to get 
an honest expression from any congregation. 
It is possible that in these days the after meet- 
ing in the presence of largely sympathetic per- 
sons will result in most honest and decisive in- 
fluence. We have found that requesting the 
congregation to bow their heads in prayer in 
such a service, and after a short season of 
prayer, while all are in the attitude of rever- 
ence, with the absence of that embarrassment 
that comes from the gaze of a congregation, 
there may be had an expression from honest, 
earnest souls which would not otherwise be 
gained. This may seem, to some, making the 
way too easy; but we are convinced, from the 
study of the methods of Jesus of Nazareth, 
that He sought not to make it most difficult, 



Thb Me:i;tings. 85 

but, without compromising, as easy as possible 
for souls to enter His kingdom. 
Personal Personal work is the one feature 

Work. ^£ evangelistic method that is to-day 
receiving special attention. Inasmuch as re- 
vival effort that seeks to repeat the old-time 
sweeping influences seems to have failed, ear- 
nest Christians have resorted to personal work ; 
and this is more and more to be the method of 
the future. But personal work must also be 
carefully guarded. Great discretion must be 
used, and only such persons as have rare influ- 
ence should ever approach others, or be allowed 
to do so, in the midst of a public congregation. 
We must recognize the force of every man an 
evangelist, but we must shift the emphasis from 
bringing men to Christ to taking Christ to men. 
Since beginning the writing of this chapter we 
received the following note : 

''Dear Sir, — I did not have an opportunity to 
say to you that you said some very true and 
needed things in our meeting. We have several 
persons in our Church below the average in 
intelHgence and consistency, who always come 
to the front in revival services, 'buttonholing' 
every outsider in such a way that they are only 



86 The: Evangeustic Awake:ning. 

too glad to escape from them, and also to stay 
away from all further services. I thank you 
for your wise, candid opinions as expressed in 
our meeting/' 

The personal work that should be urged upon 
our people is a work outside the Church serv- 
ice; for if the workers have never shown any 
interest in the same persons apart from revival 
occasions, even very worthy people may have 
little influence; and this personal work should 
not usually be with direct and abrupt manner, 
but by making use of such opportunities as 
come to every earnest Christian who is ever at- 
tentive to his Master's business, opportunities 
when such a subject can be introduced with 
effectiveness. Great harm is done in boldly 
pushing one's self into places where all is un- 
favorable and inappropriate. This brings seri- 
ous matter into ridicule, and casts pearls before 
swine. We must teach our people that the only 
consistent and successful personal work of the 
future will be in bringing men one by one 
through the multiplied influence of single per- 
sonalities ; thus in every-day life, as well as in 
distinctive religious service, Christian men re- 
alize that their mission is to make the man next 



The: Mke:tings. 87 

to them feel that he would like to be, ought 
to be, and must be a Christian. 
The Man The persoual manner and attitude 
Between. ^£ ^^^ evaugelist is of vital consider- 
ation in evangelistic method. In no place does 
the minister of the Gospel stand on so delicate 
ground as when dealing with those who are 
feeling their way into the kingdom of God. 
He ought to be sensitive to the delicacy of 
such a place ; he is on holy ground, and should 
tread softly ; this is no place for eccentricity or 
coarseness. The evangelist may assume too 
much the attitude of the priest. He should 
never presume the lack of earnestness or sin- 
cerity upon the part of seekers who are appar- 
ently doing their best to find the light, and 
raise in their minds unnecessary doubt ; neither 
should he presume to pronounce salvation an 
accomplished fact; he may suitably stay by, 
direct, assure, and answer all questions as far 
as possible ; but he must remember that he may 
go thus far and no farther ; beyond is the ''Holy 
of Holies,'' and only the Divine Spirit may con- 
duct the soul and seal the Divine approval. 

It is a serious mistake to give assurance to 
seeking souls which is to no human agent au- 



88 Th^ EvANceusTic Awake:ning. 

thorized. Matters of consciousness we are not 
sure of until we are sure of them ; we may have 
opinions born of honest statements, but they are 
only opinions, and will not survive. The chal- 
lenge of old was, ^'Come and see;" it was not 
what was said about Christ, but Christ Himself 
who was to satisfy. The Messiah was found 
when He was found. We may define at great 
length of theological statement who Jesus 
Christ is; but He is never Divine until, with 
those of old, we have seen Him face to face. 
Then can we say, "We have found the Mes- 
siah.'' There are many honest seekers like 
Nicodemus, who know already that He is "a 
Teacher sent from God;'' they know much 
about Him, but it is a mistake to direct such 
souls to find satisfaction in added opinions ; as, 
for instance, to say, ''Now, if you just do this, 
you must be saved. Believe that you are, and 
you are." Nothing is more disastrous to faith 
than this method of procedure. We can say, 
''Behold the Lamb of God;" we can set Him 
forth in the best possible light, and do all in our 
power to aid vision ; but no man ever sees, until 
lie does see; and when he does, he asks no 
other assurance, but exclaims, I have found 
the Messiah; whereas I was once blind, now I 



The: Me:etings. 89 

see. The evangelist is on the wrong track 
when he continually inquires, ^^How do you 
feel?'' It is his duty more frequently to ask, 
*What is your purpose?" Genuine religious 
feeling must be spontaneous, and not sought for 
as such; feelings thus awakened, may become 
very poor indications of Christian purpose. 
TheEmo- ^^^c late Dr. Parker said, not 
PowVand long before his death, ^'There is a 
Peru. gi-eat deal of prejudice against 
emotion; but without emotion religion is a 
grate, well-filled, with no match to light 
it." ^'Do not," said he, ^'be afraid of emo- 
tion and Methodist fervor. Some Meth- 
odists are afraid of their own Methodism." 
President Eliot, of Harvard, in an address be- 
fore ministers in Boston, not long ago, said, 
"One of the weaknesses of the Church, espe- 
cially the Methodist, has been its cultivation 
of the emotional." The Daily Press, of New 
York City, commenting upon his remarks, said : 
'^President Eliot belongs to that pre-emi- 
nently respectable Christian body of people 
known as Unitarians. They began business 
about the same time; the results are that the 
Methodists have 56,000 churches, 38,000 min- 
isters, 6,000,000 members, and property worth 



90 Th^ EvANGEivisTic Awakening. 

$200,000,000. The Unitarians have 453 
churches, 554 ministers, 61,000 members, and 
property worth $10,000,000. The Methodists 
had the emotion, the Unitarians had not. The 
results need no comment." 

The Christian world has given Methodism 
the title, "Christianity in earnest.'' The result 
of her work has certainly justified this; for, in 
view of the small way in which she began, with 
the limited resources that for years she pos- 
sessed, evidence is given that there must have 
been some peculiar force by which these people 
were moved to the accomplishment of so great 
things. Whatever may be the weakness or 
strength of such movements, one thing is cer- 
tainly true, that we only get this product where 
the emotions are stirred. 

There is a prevailing notion in non-evangel- 
istic circles that emotions and intellect have 
little correspondence in religion; but *^belief is 
a mental state which might as well be classed 
under emotion as under thinking, because it 
combines both elements." "One may feel in- 
tensely concerning a certain subject and be all 
the better student." "Hence the emotions are 
not, as was formerly thought, entirely hostile 
to intellectual action." "Emotion often quick- 



The: Meetings. 91 

ens the perception, burns things indelibly into 
the memory, and doubles the rapidity of 
thought." 

The secret of power in connection with emo- 
tion is due to considering its changeableness. 
''Strike when the emotional iron is hot, ought 
to be the maxim ; for emotion does not gener- 
ally remain long at its height. An agent for 
Grant's 'Memoirs' said that the week follow- 
ing the General's death, there was harder work 
every day to make a sale, so quickly did popu- 
lar grief decline. A certain city, at the time 
of Lincoln's death, talked of raising funds for 
a monument. Had the paper been circulated 
at once, a million would have been subscribed 
within a week. But time passed, and much 
difficulty was experienced in getting subscrip- 
tions." There are times when a congregation 
have been thinking seriously with "line upon 
line," and are intellectually persuaded when an 
appeal may properly be made with all the pres- 
sure that good sense and good taste will allow ; 
for only then and thus can we hope to rescue 
many people from that apathy of will and pa- 
ralysis of feeling that holds them bound against 
their deepest convictions. Thus emotion is a 
great factor in revival work; it serves very 



92 The; Evange:ustic Awake:ning. 

much as a tide to carry helpless souls over the 
bar into the harbor of safety. 

Peru of But emotions are full of peril 
Emotion, jf ovcrworked and not guarded. 
There is great danger in conducting a revival 
service by men of magnetic power and ability 
to direct to action. There is no doubt that 
the disrepute of evangelism in many quarters 
is due largely to the extreme effort to work the 
emotions out of correspondence with judgment 
and will. 

Men have conscientiously believed that the 
more deeply feelings were moved, and the more 
fully persons became completely submissive to 
an all-pervading emotionalism, the greater the 
evidence of the supernatural. But we must 
understand that the supernatural thing about 
Christianity is not feeling, but life. The unfor- 
tunate thing about much evangelistic method, 
has been that men have often "appealed to 
something less than the best." ^^Religion thus 
becomes reactionary, rather than progressive.'' 

"After a revival of religion in a community, 
there are too frequently found heart-burnings 
and misunderstandings, which have come be- 
cause the new fervor has not been properly tem- 
pered by a judicial fairness of mind." "Who 



Th^ Mi:e:tings. 93 

has not met in every evangelistic service scores 
of people who really wanted to lead a Christian 
life, who had been at some time brought under 
tremendous pressure, and had taken a step they 
were not ready for, and had left the meeting 
to live a most uncomfortable life, that made 
them ever after harder to reach? ^'Better have 
a dozen people constrained, convicted, con- 
verted, than a hundred caught in some emo- 
tional movement, in which there was no real 
depth of conviction and result." 

The weakness of evangelism is too often due 
to excessive dependence upon mechanical meth- 
ods rather than Divine truth and the Spirit. 
We ought never to forget that the supreme 
reason for method is its use in bringing de- 
cision and action. Any method that goes be- 
yond truth and the Divine Spirit simply sub- 
verts the only agencies that have converting 
power. Machinery has no saving power; it 
simply assists in bringing the soul to co-operate 
with or submit to the Spirit's quickening power. 
It is probable that one reason why we do not 
witness so many sweeping revivals is because 
men avoid what they have come to believe are 
dangerous influences, and will not follow up a 
meeting of exciting nature. There have been 



94 The: Evaxgi:listic Awakkxixg. 

too many manufactured revivals, with emphasis 
upon how things are done. This appaUing lack 
of faith in revivalism is because people believe 
the Church has been humbugged by machinery 
whose products were not real but apparent. 
This is true to so great an extent that even the 
apparent success no longer attends. 

Pentecost had no method; the Reformation 
was as spontaneous as life; it burned in and 
burst out of a great soul. \\^esley was a man 
most regardful of expediencies, and had no 
iron-clad forms of revivalism. Finney, Ed- 
wards, Moody, and all other great evangelists, 
have honored truth and the Holy Spirit. Past 
revivalism has been too revolutionary in its 
method. As a revolutionary movement, Chris- 
tianity is not successful; it does revolutionize, 
but is not revolutionary. Revolutions do not 
have saving power in them; they may turn 
things upside down, but they leave them the 
same in the concrete; they still have to be 
turned inside out by a transforming power that 
sentiment or method can not reach. Jesus 
knew^ that those who would crown Him to-day, 
would crucify Him to-morrow. We can not 
depend upon sweeping men into the kingdom 
by sentiment or machinery, upon a tide of feel- 



The Meetings. 95 

ing, or by magnetic leadership. Conversions 
should be attended by an intelligent choice, a 
deep feeling of the supremacy of the purpose, 
and an earnest desire for all possible help to 
attain that for which a Christian life stands. 
In the last twenty-five years the Church has 
spent vast sums of money in method, only to 
leave us paralyzed by virtue of a mechanical 
spirituality born of religious gymnastics. Re- 
vivals are not gotten up ; they come down, not 
by emphasis upon ''born again'' by some new 
notion, but "born from above" by a new life 
power. We want the old-time revival, but w^e 
want it older than our generation. We want 
it to go back to that day that had no machinery, 
when men believed in God and the Holy Spirit 
on the one hand, and the intelligent, free, 
moral agency on the other. 
The Holy The plan of this discussion does 
Spirit. ^^^ ^^jj £^^ ^ consideration of the 

office and mission of the Holy Spirit, except, 
perhaps, a brief mention of the dangers of some 
present-day interpretations. The power and 
efficiency of the Holy Spirit must always be 
assumed in the work of evangelism. To dis- 
count this is to deprive the Church of the gift 
of all gifts; and the evangelist who does not 



96 The) EvANGBi^isTic Awake:ning. 

believe in, and seek to possess, this gift, may 
as well lay down his task before he begins. 
There is no substitute. 

"Christianity is not merely a set of ideas." 
Important as these may be, the world will not 
be saved by ideas; nor can we save the world 
by spiritless methods. Christianity is not a 
method; it is a power that protrudes beyond 
all ideas, and outstrips all methods. It is im- 
portant to present-day evangelism that this 
greatest evangelistic gift be rescued from the 
crude, materialistic conception of certain de- 
fined mechanical processes. Some preachers, 
instead of bringing men under the influence of 
the Spirit, simply bring them under the influ- 
ence of an idea about the Spirit. Not a little 
effort has been given to emphasizing the per- 
sonal as over against the impersonal, and yet it 
is doubtful if this has contributed to a greater 
manifestation of the Spirit. Even the idea of 
a personal God has no very strong hold upon 
the human mind; to the common people, God 
is more a power than a person. The only Di- 
vine Person in the Trinity we know, is the 
Divine Son; because we know Him, we know 
the Father. To the simple folk we are, the 
Holy Spirit will always signify more as a mys- 



The; Mde^tings. 97 

terious, all-pervading power, than as a clearly 
defined personality. And it is a mistake to try 
to so define the indefinable as to make the Holy 
Spirit more a limited idea than an tmlimited 
power. 

Nothing is more impK)rtant to the evangelist 
than to keep ever before him that the Christian 
religion is ordered to reach the simplest minds, 
and its principles and operations are so fash- 
ioned. An evangelist needs to be intelligent, 
but not self-conscious; not obliged to think 
about terms and methods, but susceptible to 
that influence, mysterious, subtle, and mighty, 
which makes both the man and his message 
agents of God, by which the Gospel becomes 
the power unto salvation. We need also to 
rescue the Holy Spirit from the historical and 
traditional conception, which has limited the 
power by insisting upon the exact renewal of 
expressions belonging to conditions long since 
past. There is something amazing about that 
strange power which accompanied the disciples 
of Jesus as they went forth, and one readily 
consents that, "had the Holy Spirit not come, 
the Christian Church would never have con- 
quered ; nay, . . . never have been born." 
But the men who were the agents of these 
7 



98 The: Evange:listic Awaki:ning. 

manifestations had no theory of the Holy 
Spirit ; they scarcely appreciated what the Mas- 
ter meant when He said, ^*I will not leave you 
comfortless/' helpless ; yet through their agency 
the Spirit's power was supreme. 

Men who pray for another Pentecost, often 
help to paralyze the faith in a gift that was to 
be for all time by making a fetich of place and 
method and expression, magnifying the out- 
ward appearance rather than the real substance. 
It is not advantageous to the ushering in of a 
revival of religion to be always looking back- 
ward and magnifying the manifestations of 
Divine power through means and methods of 
days gone by. "O for the days of Wesley, 
Whitefield, Luther, the apostles!'' What we 
ought to say is, "O for the belief that the same 
Jesus who ascended has come back again, and 
that He is here in the universal representation 
of the Holy Spirit, as truly as He was in the 
city of Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost!" 
"People pray for a fuller outpouring of the 
Spirit of God, a new Pentecost. You do not 
need to pray for fresh fire ; the fire is burning, 
if you will only let Him baptize you in it. You 
need not pray for a rushing, mighty wind to 
sweep away stagnation and malaria ; the wind is 



The Meetings. 99 

blowing, if only you will let it freshen your 
atmosphere and fill your sails/' 

The There is no part of the conduct 

Appeal. ^£ ^j^^ revival service upon which so 
much depends as upon the public appeal. It is 
here men are greatest successes or greatest fail- 
ures; for here, as nowhere else, the real evan- 
gelistic gift is evidenced. The exhorter who 
followed the preacher in the old-time Methodist 
service was the man upon whom its fruitage 
most depended. In many, this gift was culti- 
vated to an unusual degree, and men became 
experts in moving the people after a thought- 
ful, earnest Gospel sermon. There are more 
evangelists who fail by lack of power and gen- 
ius in this than elsewhere, and more pastors 
who, feeling the lack of these gifts, declare they 
can not do evangelistic work. I have heard 
many strong pastors say, who were able to 
preach with great effectiveness, that they would 
give almost anything to be able to apply the ser- 
mon and direct the people to immediate action ; 
but they have felt themselves helpless in such 
a situation. Is there anything more paralyzing 
than when, at the close of a sermon, an attempt 
is made to move the people by an appeal which 
lacks power, and which is void of the genius 



loo The: Evange^listic Awakening. 

of wise and successful direction ? Nothing will 
put a greater damper on the meeting, not only 
for the time being, but sometimes indefinitely, 
than to have an appeal fail in its attempt to 
move people. Every man who w^ould succeed 
in this respect should make a most careful study 
of how to bring his sermon to such a conclu- 
sion as will make it possible for him to enforce 
it, and also to direct action so as not to fail of 
immediate response. Better make no attempt 
in the face of a large audience to get public 
committal, unless there be some assurance of 
favorable response. 

The appeal must be in the expression of the 
heroic, self-denying spirit of the real rescuer 
who risks his life for those who are in peril. 
An appeal is useless if we can not make men 
feel by our very expression that we are pos- 
sessed enough of the heroic, not simply to 
stand on the shore and shout "danger,'' "this 
way," or even to throw out the life-line; our 
manner must be characterized by something 
deeper than this, — a spirit of consecration, a 
willingness to stem the tide or risk the waves to 
rescue the perishing. In the great Chicago 
theater disaster, one officer is said to have at 
least fifty lives to his credit. Soon after the 



The: Me:e:tings. ioi 

blaze began he placed himself on the platform 
of the rear fire-escape, and there for hours he 
worked, helping panic-stricken fugitives across 
the perilous ladder bridge reaching from the 
platform to the nearest building, — a splendid 
example of that kind of heroism that should 
characterize the evangelistic rescuer. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE EVANGELISTIC MESSAGE. 



1. The Importance of the Sermon. 

2. A Message Commands Attention. 

3. What Shall We Preach? 

(1) Not an Apologetic. 

(2) Message not Controversial. 

(3) Preach the Gospel, not About It. 

(4) Preach Positive Truths. 

(5) Preach Fundamentals. 

(6) Preach Christ Crucified. 

4. A Message of Authority. 

5. Believe in the Message. 

6. Your Message Consistent. 

7. It must be Impassioned. 

8. Passion Kindled by Vision. 



CHAPTiiR III. 

THE EVANGELISTIC MESSAGE. 

Possibly quite as much of the failure of the 
evangehstic movement of the last two decades 
has been due to a misplaced emphasis as to any 
other single thing. During this time the 
Churches most committed to evangelism have 
been given to emphasizing the method rather 
than the message. Indeed, it has been a period 
which has greatly neglected the function of 
preaching. The great denominations have em- 
phasized, through the office of their leaders and 
their press, the function of pastoral visitation 
and the management of Churches, almost to 
the exclusion of the office of the pulpit. Hence, 
young men of evangelistic gifts have, in alto- 
gether too many instances, given their attention 
to the newest method of conducting services. 
They have spent an undue proportion of their 
time in what they have termed pastoral visita- 
tion ; trusting to the machinery of their method, 
with little attention to the necessity of a strong 

105 



io6 Th^ Evange:i.istic Awake:ning. 

message from God's Word, which He has 
promised shall not return unto Him void; and 
all of this in an age of increasing intelligence, 
which would seem to demand greater pulpit 
effort than any previous time. 

In conversation with a very successful pas- 
tor, who has never failed to bring men into his 
Church every year directly from the ranks of 
the world by conversion, he said: "People do 
not attach enough value to attendance upon 
Church service. I find," said he, ''that nearly 
all our conversions are from those who have 
been for years more or less regular in attend- 
ance upon the preaching of the Word, and had 
doubtless become more influenced by it than we 
were aware.'' We do not discount pastoral 
work, and certainly not the power of personal 
contact, nor indeed reasonable consideration of 
methods; but the Gospel, and the Gospel 
preached, has been, and will be, ''the power 
of God unto salvation," if we give it a reason- 
able chance. Therefore, in time of evangel- 
istic effort, more importance must be attached 
to the power of preaching ; for we observe that 
the great revivals of abiding character were 
born far more of the message than of the 
method ; and much of the instability of modern 



The Evang^ustic Message:. 107 

revivals is due to the disproportionate emphasis 
upon method rather than message. 
A Messagre Can the preaching^ of the Gospel 

Commands ^ 

Attention, command the thoughtful world of 
to-day on the one hand, and can it be preached 
v^ith sufificient attractiveness to gain the atten- 
tion and hold the interest of the larger world 
of the masses with their common impulses? 
Here and there are preachers whose churches 
are filled; but to one of these there are prob- 
ably five, if not ten, who preach once a day, 
and many twice, to churches whose capacity is 
not half filled; and in larger communities and 
cities it is not because these churches are too 
large to accommodate the people who ought to 
be reached by the Gospel. Many people, and 
some preachers, have become so accustomed 
to this as to be apparently little concerned 
about it ; and others grieve over it with no re- 
sult. Is not the pulpit itself largely responsible 
for the extent to which this condition obtains ; 
namely, that the people approve and sometimes 
demand performance instead of preaching? 
Has it not lowered itself and lost its hold as 
such by yielding to the superficial, if not the 
baser tastes? The church is not a theater, nor 
the pulpit a stage ; as such they are both dismal 



io8 The: EvangdIvISTic Awake:ning. 

failures. To the pulpit the world looks for a 
man with a message. Our contention is, that 
the preacher of the Gospel who has a message 
from God, fresh, warm, up-to-date, dealing 
with the people's needs, vivacious with the dy- 
namics of an intense personality, will be heard. 
A man with a message has never failed to get 
the ear of the world. Sometimes he has been 
only a John the Baptist out of the wilderness ; 
vSometimes a polished Brooks, or an impassioned 
and masterly Beecher; while in the same or 
closely allied ages, a plain but pungent Spur- 
geon, or an almost crude but captivating 
Moody. A man may have character, brains, 
gifts, and graces with which to adorn any pul- 
pit, and yet be without a message. A message 
must have in it two chief notes : The prophetic 
note, that comes from the exalted plane of 
vision from which the prophet observes the 
state of affairs, the trend of human life, and its 
peril; not a vision of the world as some day 
long since gone by, but of his own immediate 
age, upon which he looks as God's watchman 
from the tower. Then from another Mount 
of Vision, not glaring with the light of Sinai, 
nor smoking with that of Carmel, but bathed 
with the tears and sobs of Calvary, he must 



Thk Evangkustic Message:. 109 

proclaim to the world the "glad tidings of great 
joy : Peace on earth, good will to men," through 
the unspeakable gift of God's matchless love; 
and both of these notes, that of the prophet 
and of the priest, must burn with a passion all 
consuming, that will make men feel the su- 
preme urgency of the appeal. 
What Shall ^^^ camcst pastor who is anxious 
We Preach? ^j^q^^ getting pcoplc interested in 
his message, that he may reach them with sav- 
ing truth, is often confronted in time of evan- 
gelistic effort by the question, *'What shall I 
preach?" Let us state first, briefly, what not 
to preach, and how not to preach. 

First, do not preach an apologetic or defens- 
ive gospel. There are times and places for 
defending the faith, but such preaching should 
be done in regular services, as evangelists have 
not time to settle the questions raised by such 
procedure; and, moreover, the times do not 
demand it to any great degree. The thinking 
people are likely to believe that you live in an- 
other age, and will be prejudiced against your 
message, believing that the great fundamentals 
of Christianity are settled and accepted, and 
that the non-essentials are not worthy the at- 
tention of a man who pretends to be on the 



no Tut Evange:i,istic Awakening. 

urgent errand of the King's business, proclaim- 
ing to dying men the way of life and salvation. 

The preacher of to-day, and especially the 
evangelistic preacher, ought to consider the 
changed mind of the world. Every preacher 
and evangelist should take into consideration 
that he lives in another thought-world. The 
environment of life is not what it formerly was ; 
and in this environment men must be dealt 
with. 

There are some forms of thought a man need 
never take seriously into consideration as a 
preacher. For example, it is useless for a man 
to waste his time antagonizing IngersoUism ; 
for IngersoUism is as dead, for the most part, 
as Ingersoll. Men are not held in the grip of 
an atheistic philosophy; not theoretical but 
practical atheism grips the life of the world 
to-day. It is absurd to fail to recognize this 
changed mind; for there is a sense in which 
"we must get men to accept a true philosophy 
before we can preach the gospel to them. We 
have to take men as we find them ; we have to 
preach the Gospel to the mind that is around 
us. If the mind is rooted in a view of the world 
which leaves no room for Christ and His work 
as Christian experience has realized them, then 



The: EvANGDusTic Me:ssage:. hi 

that view of the world must be appreciated by 
the evangelist and undermined at its weak 
places. The attempt must be made to liberate 
the mind so that it may be open to the impres- 
sion of realities, which, under the conditions 
imposed, it could only encounter with instinct- 
ive antipathy/^ 

The whole method of teaching in school and 
college has changed. We do not provide text- 
books to-day with questions to be solved, and 
drive the scholars up to the post and hitch them 
there until they have solved them. We bring 
the boy or girl face to face with problems in 
such a manner that they will ask the questions ; 
and a question that a boy is interested enough 
in to ask, is sure to incite him to attempt to find 
the answer. The compelling method is not con- 
sidered any longer a successful educational 
method; nor does it succeed any better in re- 
ligion than education. Study to find the most 
open avenue to a man's mind, but do not try 
to force yourself through a sternly barred door. 

The evangelistic message should, as far as 
possible, avoid the controversial. A minister 
may sometimes advertise himself and his serv- 
ices temporarily by entering into the discussion 
of controversial topics, but he is not likely to 



112 Thi^ Evangelistic Awake:ning. 

accomplish any direct evangelistic end by this 
method; for if there are those opposed to his 
views he is much more likely to stir feelings 
antagonistic, and widen the distance between 
himself and his hearers, and those who are not 
thus interested are likely to feel that such a 
time is not well suited to the discussion of such 
questions, and his message fails to persuade. 
There are some evangelists who seem to be 
unable to introduce a revival campaign except 
upon the ground of combating some attitude 
of mind w^hich they feel obtains in the congre- 
gation or community. They even go so far as 
to discount morality in order to emphasize evan- 
gelism. I recall an instance of this in the 
community where I lived when a boy. The 
Churches represented were Methodist, Baptist, 
and Universalist. The latter had not a large, 
but an eminently respectable following. 
Preachers of the evangelical Churches seemed 
to feel that whenever any aggressive move- 
ments of evangelism were instituted, the first 
thing necessary was to make an attack upon the 
Universalist position. In order to do this they 
frequently did their best to belittle moral life 
and character outside the Christian Church. 
They emphasized morality as filthy rags, and 



The: EvANGKivisTic Me:ssage;. 113 

berated those who gave themselves the slightest 
credit for its possession. They invariably over- 
looked that fundamental thought illustrated in 
the attitude of the Master as He stood in the 
presence of the almost perfect young man of 
whom He said there was but one thing lacking. 
If necessary to attempt the undermining 
work in preaching, do not attack the strong 
but the weak points in a man's position. The 
Japanese army had driven their men like sheep 
to the slaughter in their attempts to capture 
Port Arthur, and the war was indefinitely and 
cruelly prolonged by the invulnerable condition 
of the fortification. They could do nothing 
better ; for there seemed to be no weak point in 
the Russian stronghold ; but the average man is 
not so fortified. The positions taken are 
usually poorly defended, a mere temporary 
refuge as an excuse from present duty. If a 
preacher selects the strongest points to attack, 
he may be held at bay indefinitely ; for the po- 
sition will doubtless be one about which will be 
rallied all defensive forces, the stubbornness of 
half truths, hereditary bias, and personal pride ; 
but if he attacks the weak points, by the wise 
process of indirection, he may speedily cause 
the man to feel the insecurity of his positions, 
8 



114 Ths Evange:ustic Awake^ning. 

and his common sense will lead him to flee 
to a safe foundation. 
Preach the We think it is fair to say, and is 

Gospel. Not ^., , , ,. \' , 

About It. not likely to be contradicted, that a 
majority of the professional evangelists of the 
last quarter of a century have been the most 
decidedly dogmatic preachers in the pulpit ; and 
this too in the face of the fact that these men, 
for the most part, have been without theological 
training, or even Biblical instruction that would 
warrant them in assuming decided opinions on 
great controversial doctrines. I have fre- 
quently heard these men arraign the preachers 
generally for not preaching the Gospel, and 
then go on night after night promulgating their 
opinions, and denouncing those who did not hold 
them, and scarcely preach a simple, straight- 
forward Gospel sermon in a whole week. 

The most intelligent people of to-day have 
little care, hardly respect, for a man who 
preaches a set of ideas and opinions on such 
occasions. They do not want to hear addresses 
on theology, any more than addresses on phi- 
losophy. They do not want lectures about the 
Gospel any more than a hungry man wants to 
hear lectures on pure food. The people are 
hungry; they want to be fed. If the Gospel 



The: Evange:ustic Mkssage. 115 

pulpit has lost its authority, it is to no little 
degree attributable to the fact of so much 
preaching about the Gospel. The moment we 
begin, in these days of freedom of thought, to 
theorize, dogmatize, or speculate, every man 
who believes in religious tolerance feels he has 
a right to put his opinions over against ours, 
and our message to him has lost its authority. 
We have spent too much time, and sometimes 
lost our way, trying to make the people see 
Divine things as we see them, rather than point- 
ing them to Him who said, ^'He that hath seen 
Me, halh seen the Father ;'' for whether we are 
aware of it or not, the people still want to "see 
Jesus." 

*'The recent theological discussion has not 
aflFected the relation of the masses to the 
Church, so much as it has affected the relation 
of the Church, and especially the theologians, to 
the masses. The common people, the lower 
classes, are deeply interested in bread, but know 
little and care less about scientific dietetics. 
The Gospel as preached by Jesus of Nazareth is 
still acceptable to the common people.'' 

Preach Far better is it in almost every 

Positive 

Truths, instance not to preach negatives, not 
to deny or denounce, but to declare and an- 



ii6 The: Evangelistic Awakening. 

nounce. *'The evangel is not denunciatory of 
sin; it is not pronunciatory of punishment; it 
is annunciatory of salvation." The world needs 
only to be convinced that there is a better way ; 
that instead of husks, there is bread; instead 
of a barren desert, a land of milk and honey. 
Altogether too much time is spent by many 
evangelists in trying to convince of self-evident 
and self-conscious facts concerning sin. Not 
that these need to be overlooked, much less 
compromised, but taken for granted. What 
men are anxious to know is that **the Son of 
man hath power on earth to forgive sin;'' that 
the Lamb of God taketh away the sin of the 
world, and "though your sins be as scarlet, 
they shall be as white as snow." In other 
words, the people are famishing, perishing for 
the bread of life, and the preacher should make 
it his supreme study so to set it before them 
that they will receive it and live. 

Prea<jh The method of the past has been 

mentals. from particulars to fundamentals. 
The method of the future must be from funda- 
mentals to particulars. An immense amount 
of time and energy has been spent in discussing 
to promiscuous congregations, often to their 
confusion or disgust, the fine doctrinal points 



The; Evange:i.istic Me:ssage:. 117 

of Christianity, to which, if you succeed in 
committing a man, you have not gained 
much; for a part of Christianity can never 
be equal to the whole; and some of the 
hardest tasks we have, are to get people 
thus committed, to see that they have only 
become possessed of some single aspect of 
Christianity, and not Christianity itself. 

Preach ''I was bom in a Christian family, 

Christ , 

Crucified, and was strangely and wonderfully 
delivered from many of the more vulgar meth- 
ods of sin, and I want to say to you, in all 
honesty and sincerity, I never trembled when 
I heard the law of Moses ; but when I came into 
the presence of the radiant holiness of Christ, 
then I said, if that is what I ought to be, O 
how I have sinned!'' 

It is not necessary to compromise sin, nor 
fail to recognize its terrible meaning; but its 
meaning would better be magnified as evi- 
denced here and now, instead of passing by 
these most tangible evidences, to the promised 
consequences of the hereafter. But, after all, 
the great evangelistic message is that of the 
cross, ''And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all 
men unto Me." A sinner melted by the love 
of Jesus Christ from the cross, is much more 



ii8 The Evangeustic Awakening. 

susceptible to molding by grace than is the 
sinner moved by fear of the perils of unalter- 
able law. The old appeals to future torments 
do not take hold as does the appeal to the best. 
"They can not long be frightened by lurid 
word-pictures of the fiery torments, the intoler- 
able tortures of the damned, such as our fore- 
fathers painted for their terrified hearers; but 
their moral sense healthily responds to a plain, 
earnest, honest declaration of the certain and 
terrible sequence of sin and suffering, such as 
is being so generally recognized by the masters 
of modern literature, but neglected — shall I say, 
almost criminally neglected? — by the pulpit, 
where the danger signals should never be low- 
ered, but where the dark and awful reality can 
be relieved by heavenly flash-lights of the pity- 
ing compassion and forgiving love of the 
Father through the Eternal Son," — "before the 
world's foundation slain." The Gospel of the 
cross is the only Gospel that saves. Whatever 
else a man drops out of his preaching as an 
evangelist, he must never turn aside from the 
cross, nor ever trifle with it. Men may make 
light of "hiding beneath the blood" and of the 
"crudeness of a Gospel of Calvary," but no 



The EvANG:eLisTic Message. 119 

man has ever succeeded in doing the work of 
a real evangelist to the lost sons of God, with- 
out a message characterized by an appeal to 
men from the vision of Him who "was 
bruised for our iniquities." It may be to 
some foolishness and to others a stumbling 
block, but to those who will be fishers of 
men, it must be without a question *'the 
power of God unto salvation/' 
A Message The Gospcl message must not lack 
Authority, the ring of authority. People want 
to hear a man who has something to say that 
he believes, and his confidence in his message 
must be the result of clinging to such truths as 
exclude controversy, hesitancy, and doubt. A 
message that falters or hesitates, requires apol- 
ogy, excuse, or modification, is not suited to 
the persuading of men to immediate decision 
for the Christian life. We think it will not be 
misunderstood if we remark that the character 
of the preaching for the past quarter of a cen- 
tury has failed to be persuasive in a large de- 
gree, because it was, with some, an attempt to 
present phases of truth that were being so dis- 
turbed that the preacher himself was not able 
to preach them with the sense of authority that 



I20 The Evangeustic Awakening. 

IS the result of a profound conviction unmoved 
by questions of theology. A man unsettled in 
his own views upon a fundamental doctrine can 
never preach it so that it will be received by 
others. And his authority must also have 
something more than the conviction of the 
man ; it must be buttressed by truth. An evan- 
gelist may be ever so earnest and impassioned, 
but if there is with the intelligent people a 
feeling that his appeal is on the basis "of an 
unscholarly dogmatism rather than a genuine 
truth-seeking," he will not gain their confi- 
dence, much less be able to convince them. The 
man who is to make men feel that his message 
has claims must, above all, be honest in his use 
of Scripture, and true to all light. A man is 
more likely to usher in a revival of religion 
by preaching truth in the light of modern inter- 
pretations, even though branded as heresy, than 
in preaching ideas and doctrines to which the 
Church ties, if the Church has not recognized 
the light, but demands statement of positions 
in which the preacher has not unqualified con- 
fidence. The evangelist who boldly declares, 
"I have long since ceased to preach to the mind 
of my hearers ; I make my appeal to the will,"' 



Th^ Evange;i.istic Message:. 121 

lacks sanity. Such a man can but speedily lose 
the respect of his audience. 

BeUeve We can not appeal effectively un- 

In Your . . ^ 

Message, less we bclieve in our message. One 
of the marked characteristics of the preaching 
of the great revivals of history was, that those 
who preached, believed in their sermons, and 
expected men to believe and be saved. They 
did not always exact expressions, so as to count 
the people ; they permitted God to do His own 
book-keeping; but they preached to save men. 
We often preach perfunctorily, because we have 
to preach. This is the misfortune of that kind 
of evangelism that brings a man to preach to- 
night, and another to-morrow night, neither 
in the spirit of the service nor with a message 
born for the occasion. Thus the sermon is a 
mere filling of time, and the exhorter has to 
preach another sermon or depend upon the 
power of the arousements or the mechanism of 
his after-service. The sermon is discounted; 
it was never suited; nothing was aimed at; 
nothing expected. The message must be pre- 
pared for the occasion, and believed in when 
preached. That oft-advanced idea, '*the imma- 
nence of God,'' is one of the best gifts of faith 



122 Th]^ EvANGBlylSTiC AWAK^NING. 

in modern times ; it simply needs a new trans- 
lation or interpretation. There is a genuine 
Divine immanence, not a vague indefinite 
"power that makes for righteousness ;" it is the 
immanence of God the Spirit, given, as Christ 
declared, for human expediency — (''It is ex- 
pedient that I go away") — who takes of the 
things that are Christ's and makes them clear 
to men; who makes God immanent through a 
living Christ. This Christ, the preacher must 
expect to find in every dark place correspond- 
ing to his message. 

"I have never been in a place so dark that 
I did not find Christ there. I have told some 
of the people about the work which God has 
helped me to do in my own Church in London. 
On the last day of the old year, a year ago, I 
went down to a house where there were some 
seventy fallen women, to take three of their 
number away to a new life; and as I left that 
house with those three poor creatures, the other 
inhabitants of the house lined up the passage- 
way and prayed for them as they passed. They 
said things like this : 'Be good ; O you have got 
such a chance; we wish we had it! Can not 
you take us away too, sir, and give us a 
chance?' And the poor souls wished me *a 



The; Evange:ivISTic Me:ssage:. 123 

Happy New Year' as I went out into the 
dark street. Was not Christ there? A 
dark place, and the doors were shut, yet 
Christ got there. There is no place so 
dark but that Jesus can make light." 

Yours a Ouc of the suprcme advantages 

Consistent , , . 

Message, given to the evangelistic preacher of 
to-day is, that he does not have to apologize, 
explain, or reconcile theories of redemption 
with facts of Scripture and nature. If the ser- 
mons of some of the great evangelists of former 
times, like Edwards's ^'Sinners in the Hands of 
an Angry God," seem crude to you, remember 
they had to appeal to something beside reason, 
and indeed almost to discard reason; tied to a 
theology that, though it might shock the finest 
sensibilities and bar every process of reason, 
must not be compromised. ''The great reviv- 
alists of the Middle Ages had to get men to 
do many things besides repenting of their sins 
and believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. Later, 
in most of the countries of the Reformation, 
evangelists had to tell each unconverted man 
that the question of his salvation or damnation 
was unalterably fixed by the all-predestinating 
God before the foundations of the world were 
laid. Edwards was a great revivalist, but he 



124 'The: Evangelistic Awakening. 

had to entreat sinners to use a freedom, the 
existence of which his theology strenuously de- 
nied. The Oberlin revivalists used to ask the 
unconverted to do by 'natural ability' what they 
admitted was morally impossible. It was the 
best those preachers could do/' "Your prede- 
cessors have had to tell men that they were 
stone-deaf, yet under obligation to act; that 
they were dead, yet under obligation to exhibit 
the activities of the highest life.'* 

**The crowning beauty and glory of your 
opportunity is that to you, more fully than to 
any class of evangelical preachers that ever 
went before you, is definitely and explicitly 
committed the Gospel of the Prodigal Son." 

Message Nothinsf IS more hopeless in an 

Must Be , ^ ,111 

Impassioned, evangelistic message than the lack 
of passion. In no place is a preacher more 
helpless than when endeavoring to present a 
messag to persuade men to decide the great 
question, and to act upon their conviction to 
enter a Christian life, than when his message 
lacks the moving power of an impassioned ap- 
peal. '^It did not create any throb in the soul 
of the listener," is the feeling that one some- 
times has, as he listens to a good, faithful pre- 
sentation of truth, void of that peculiar element 



Th^ Evange;ustic Me:ssagi^,. 125 

that has made great orators and great preachers 
capable of lifting their hearers out of the spell 
of apathy, and sweeping them along to the 
point of decision, and past into the kingdom. 

This passion is neither noise nor exhibition 
of physical energy — although a voice and 
a manner may be so quiet as to paralyze — but 
rather is it an enkindling of life, an exhibition 
of spirit that throbs in the voice, beams on the 
face, and flashes in the eye. Such passion is 
due to many elements : 

A good physical make-up is a great quality. 
Is it not clear that many men are barred from 
success in the pulpit, especially as evangelists, 
because they have not the most essential qual- 
ities in a preacher's nature? A fine physique 
is a priceless heritage to a preacher; but even 
the lack of that can be overcome by qualities 
of courage exhibited through a nervous temper- 
ament that one can control, yet always rally on 
the spot. A man without keen nerves that 
brace his eyes wide open after an earnest effort 
in a Gospel service, making sleep nearly im- 
possible, is without a great requisite to success- 
ful pulpit and evangelistic effort. And natural 
sympathy, that warms and melts under the in- 
fluence of his passion, is absolutely necessary 



126 The: Evangi:i.istic Awake:ning4 

to reach the best that is in men through that 
outer crust that so often encases their lives. 
Passion And, finally, a certain frame of 

Kindled "^ 

By Vision, mind, born of reflection, meditation, 
and study, that causes to sweep before one's 
vision that which influences the whole inner 
man, and makes it intense with desire and radi- 
ant with hope, is necessary to an impassioned 
appeal. A man who can not and does not use 
to a high degree the great faculty of the im- 
agination is void of a great essential to evan- 
gelistic preaching. As evangelists we have 
cared too little for a thoughtful, reflective prep- 
aration for the message to be delivered. We 
rush thoughtlessly into the pulpit, depend too 
much upon the spur of the moment, break con- 
nection wnth our vision as we have gained it 
from reflection, by the informality of attention 
to many very minor matters of the Church serv- 
ices. The old preachers of power had this ad- 
vantage : they believed in the message prepared, 
and considered other matters unimportant when 
inflamed with their message. 

The evangelistic preacher whose vision 
sweeps out upon a helpless world must be able 
to turn from that vision up to a loving God, and 
thence down to a manger cradle, on through 



The Evangeustic Message. 127 

the gray mists and gathering darkness of Geth- 
semane, up the cruel hill of Calvary to the ugly 
tree with its jagged nails and the view of the 
thorn-crowned brow ; and under the inspiration 
of such a vision must the real messenger of the 
good tidings go forth, if he wants to get the 
ear of this old world, that he may tell with sav- 
ing effect how *'God so loved the world." 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE EVANGELISTIC PASTOR. 



1. Evangelical Means Evangelistic. 

2. Not After a Fixed Pattern. 

3. A Revival without an Evangelist Possible. 

4. An Evangelistic Pastorate Most Permanently Strong. 

5. The Only Satisfying Ministry. 

6. Evangelism Needs Able Pastoral Leadership. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE EVANGELISTIC PASTOR. 

It is time '*to rescue evangelism from the 
low estate into which it has fallen, conducted 
wholly or chiefly as it has been by strangers 
in transitu, who open sores that they leave un- 
healed, and who are indifferent to the result 
of their lightning charges. Strong Christians 
and great preachers, charged with the sublimity 
and simplicity of the Gospel, can do greater 
work than the ephemeral evangelist, who, swal- 
low-like, is here to-day and gone to-morrow.'' 
This is said not in disparagement of good evan- 
gelists, but of the misfortune that has befallen 
the whole evangelistic movement, which de- 
pends so fully upon these men who often take 
the work out of the hands of the one man who 
must be responsible for its genuineness and 
permanency. It is not because the evangelist 
does not always do good, thorough work, but 
his hand is not on the people long enough to 
mold and establish ; and pastors find it difficult 

131 



132 The Evang]3:ustic Awake^ning. 

to transfer the life from the influence of the 
evangelist to that of the pastor. To this is 
added the unfortunate impression in a com- 
munity, of a preacher ostensibly set for the sav- 
ing of the people, who must invite a profes- 
sional man to do what is in all consistency his 
supreme work. And further still, this whole 
movement tends to lift the pastor out of the 
sphere of his work, until, in some instances, 
pastors have come to take pride in the fact that 
they are not evangelistic; leaving the impres- 
sion that this is an inferior kind of work, that 
belongs more to the enthusiastic and less cul- 
tured men of "Salvation Army'' type. 

Serious reflection will disclose to any earnest 
minister that this is all wrong, and must speed- 
ily be corrected, else the whole life of the 
Church will be imperiled. Our contention is, 
that the reform must begin by restoring to the 
evangelical Church the evangelistic pastor. 
Evangelical Scarccly a minister in any one of 

Means "^ •^. , 

Evangelistic, our great orthodox denominations 
would allow himself to be charged as unevan- 
gelical, and yet he makes no contention that he 
is evangelistic. Ought there to be any such 
discrimination between evangelical and evan- 
gelistic? Evangelical means something more 



Thb Evange:ustic Pastor. 133 

than orthodox; it carries with it the idea of 
faith in a supernatural Gospel, a Gospel that 
has immediate saving power in it, and is sup- 
posed to be preached for that purpose. Is it 
not the business of every preacher of evangel- 
ical doctrines to see to it that his message is 
received, and the people saved by it ? Of what 
use is it to boast of orthodoxy and evangelical- 
ism if we do not, with Paul, find "the Gospel 
the power of God unto salvation?'' The true 
evangelical preacher preaches, not as a profes- 
sion, but by the imperative "Woe is me if I 
preach not the Gospel;'' and a man with such 
a call to the ministry, with such a constant 
impelling power, can be content with noth- 
ing less than some direct evidence of the 
fruitfulness of his mission. The only satis- 
faction of an evangelical ministry is when 
it becomes an evangelizing ministry. 

Not After a One thiusf which has limited pas- 
Fixed Pat- , ^,. . 1 /- 1 1 

tern, but toral evangfclism is the fixed stand- 

Stirringr ^ 

Best Gifts, ard of the work and the exact results 
that must follow. There has come to obtain 
a notion that certain peculiar characteristics 
must be possessed by the evangelist, and that 
he must pursue his work along fixed lines, and 
turn it out with a certain kind of stamp upon 



134 The EvANGEivisTic Awakening. 

it, however contrary this may be to his natural 
instincts. This is entirely foreign to the genius 
of Christianity. We are fully convinced that 
every preacher who is really called to the min- 
istry can become efficient as an evangelist in his 
own way, if we do not bind upon him evangel- 
istic traditions that are more than he can bear. 
When Jesus Christ chose twelve disciples He 
did not seek men of equal gifts, nor did He try 
to make them all of one mold. He did say to 
them all, "Come with Me, and I will make you 
fishers of men,'' and the characteristics of these 
men stand out clearly defined, each doing his 
work in his own way. It has ever been so. 
There is a large class of people who seem to be 
reached only by a man who has all the char- 
acteristics of the average evangelist; there is 
also another large class whom he can not reach, 
who will scarcely go to hear him, and, if they do, 
are not favorably impressed. Why not assume 
that some of the characteristics of men who 
have none of these qualities, if they would apply 
the gifts they do have in an evangelistic way, 
are just the men needed to reach that class un- 
touched by the man of common evangelistic 
gifts? 

Preachers may not agree altogether as to how 



The Evangeustic Pastor. 135 

to conduct the revival, nor as to all its manifes- 
tations ; but if they want it, and are determined 
to use their best judgment and largest gifts in 
a Christ-impassioned style, it will surely come. 
The best revivals are those that come not of 
great generalship and peculiar methods, but 
that spring from earnest, inquiring, burdened, 
consecrated lives; through natural rather than 
artificial channels. Such revivals are the result, 
not of human genius, but of the supreme leader- 
ship of the Divine Spirit. Coming thus, they 
abide; preparing their own way, and creating 
an atmosphere in which converts can live. 
A Revival A rcvival without an evangelist 

Without an . ° 

Evan^reiist. must be lookcd upon as possible, and 
indeed essential, to the very life of the Church. 
It is not strange that in these days we have no 
more evangelistic pastors. Specializing this 
work by multiplying evangelists has largely 
displaced the pastor; there has been little de- 
mand for such work upon his part, and the gift 
has failed by lack of use. After reading an 
article from our pen in which we advocated 
'Tastoral Evangelism,'' a worthy and efficient 
evangelist sent us the following note : ''I heart- 
ily agree with your plan in getting the Church 
and pastors to work ; but you can honestly say 



136 The; Evang^ustic Awakening. 

that half your preachers, or more, are failures 
as evangelists." We have yet to prove that this 
is true ; but to whatever degree it may be true, 
we are obliged to affirm that is is due chiefly to 
the existence of, and reliance upon, the profes- 
sional evangelist, who has led the people to be- 
lieve that the average pastor can not do evan- 
gelistic work effectively. The Churches, as 
well as pastors, are responsible for this con- 
dition. Many of them do not want e\'angel- 
istic work done. In conversation one day with 
a brilliant and prominent young preacher, I 
discovered a peculiar note of sadness in his 
voice as he said, "I would like to have revival 
meetings, but my people do not want them." 
Here is the millstone about the neck of many 
young, earnest, and gifted preachers. These 
men are called early into Churches that appre- 
ciate their ability, but immediately quench the 
evangelistic spirit because they are not in sym- 
pathy with such work. 

We have had opportunity of observing the 
possibilities of revivals without evangelists, by 
a plan which for two years has been operated 
on the district which it is our privilege to su- 
perintend. The general plan — which may be 
of some interest — is briefly stated, thus: By 



The: Evange;i.istic Pastor. 137 

mutual agreement a pastor will go wherever 
sent, under our direction, for a period of ten 
days, to assist another pastor, and thus a com- 
plete evangelistic campaign is conducted for 
several months ; reaching every Church, enlist- 
ing every pastor, and creating thus a unity of 
evangelistic spirit. Preparation is made for 
the meeting with the same degree of care as 
though a special evangelist were coming. 
Everything possible is done to assure confi- 
dence upon the part of the people in the suc- 
cess of the meetings under such leadership. 
They are given, however, to expect that there 
IS to be nothing of peculiar or unusual order 
in the nature of the services. They are encour- 
aged to believe that good, earnest, straight- 
forward work will bring results. Not so much 
value is attached to the novelties of the evan- 
gelist, leaving chance for larger faith in God 
rather than in men and methods. Most excel- 
lent results have followed such services, with- 
out reaction. These pastors, by the confidence 
reposed in them, have applied themselves as 
evangelists, and a very large percentage have 
exhibited fine qualities of evangelism ; in many 
instances, such as neither they nor their people 
believed they possessed. We are familiar with 



138 The) Evange:i,istic Awakening. 

a goodly number of very bright preachers — 
warm-hearted, tactful, soulful pastors — who 
have all the native powers for excellent evan- 
gelistic work, and simply need to be made to 
feel that this work is fundamental to the min- 
istry. And we are sure there are men who, 
in their early ministry manifest fine gifts of this 
character, but who have allowed them to be 
paralyzed through the influence of the non- 
evangelistic Churches which they have served. 
There is nothing incompatible in splendid schol- 
arship and evangelistic fervor ; each adds to the 
force of the other, greatly enriching the pulpit ; 
but for the paralyzing influence of these 
Churches, such men might have been, not only 
great preachers, but great evangelists as well. 
^^ When a young minister of good 

^mISsIJ^*'"' ability starts out on his career, he 
pen^nentiy Undoubtedly expects that when he 
strong, commands a pulpit he will have no 
difficulty in getting a constant hearing, for 
people will be eager to get to his Church. He 
does not get far in his ministry before he dis- 
covers that he is faced by the same problem as 
that of his brethren, and that even his rare gifts 
are largely discounted, and people do not come 
to listen to his most brilliant efforts. This is 



The EvANGEivisTic Pastor. 139 

especially true of the second service of the Sab- 
bath. Immediately he is tempted to announce 
a series of special sermons of the lecture order 
to which the people will give attention for the 
time; but even then he will be disappointed 
because of some who do not appear ; and when 
the series is over, the crowd drops back to its 
original size. Then he makes another attempt 
and advertises a variety series ; some with spe- 
cial musical features, stereopticon pictures, etc. ; 
yet no real growth comes to his congregation. 
There are some extra visitors who spend a 
night with him, and some shifting sight-seers 
come to gratify an appetite for something new ; 
and even if he succeeds in gathering a congre- 
gation, he does not build up a permanent con- 
stituency, much less a Church of loyal members. 
And although it may seem to be contrary to 
superficial observation, it is nevertheless true 
that while sinners do not like to be disturbed, 
and appear more to enjoy an entertaining min- 
istry deeply, they have little respect for such, 
and the Church that stoops to compete with 
theater, lodge, or club, falls even in the estimate 
of the world. None of these innovations and 
attractions can be depended upon to build up 
permanently a Christian congregation^ and 



140 The EvANGBusTic Awakening. 

will, In most instances, eventually result in a 
boomerang to the preacher. We are convinced 
that more people want to hear the Gospel than 
anything else from the Christian pulpit. They 
can get all the other things served vip in better 
fashion elsewhere ; but the pulpit has a message 
for the souls of men as it bursts forth from the 
heart of the Gospel messenger, that can be had 
nowhere else, and people are disappointed when 
they go to the church where anything else dis- 
places that message. The abiding quality of 
the ministry will be more and more determined 
by the preacher's ability to gain an earnest and 
continued following, build up a devoted, active 
Church, and a sympathetic, co-operative con- 
gregation, who come because the Church gives 
to them something they do not find elsewhere. 
Only as the Church is the temple of God, the 
repository of His truth, the channel of His 
power ; only as it shall have kindled again and 
again that spiritual zeal, born of an intense 
evangelism, can she really commend herself 
to the world. 

A friend of mine, only a few days since, re- 
lated the following incident. He said: "We 
have in our congregation a goodly number of 
men from the business world, not Church mem- 



Th^ Evange;listic Pastor. 141 

bers or even professing Christians. In consid- 
ering a plan for special evangelistic services, 
I decided to get the feeling of these men with 
respect to such work. I asked one of them, a 
regular attendant upon public services, and al- 
ways ready to co-operate with anything of a 
general character, but who makes no profession 
of Christianity, what he and his class of people 
generally thought of evangelistic work. I said, 
*Do you men look upon these as legitimate and 
essential features of Church activity, or do you 
view it with little consideration, and think it 
only a custom that prevails V His answer sur- 
prised me. He said, 'We think this not only 
legitimate work, but the very work in which 
the Church should by all means be engaged.' '' 
We are convinced that there is a mistaken 
notion that thoughtful people outside the 
Church do not believe in intelligent, consistent, 
and earnest evangelistic effort. We rather be- 
lieve that they look with reproach upon any 
Church that professes to represent the mission 
of Jesus Christ in the world which does not 
make such work pre-eminent. Young men of 
promise in the ministry ought to reflect care- 
fully upon this, and not in the slightest degree 
discount evangelism; for if signs are to be 



142 The: Evange:listic Awakening. 

trusted at all, the greatest Churches of to- 
morrow will want men who can make their 
preaching tell in reaching the people with sav- 
ing power. ^'Stir up the gift that is in thee/' 
Only It is our Contention that, if con- 

Ministry, scicntiously pursucQ, the mmistry 
from the days of the apostles never has been a 
desirable calling for men of ability, as compared 
with other vocations, and it never can be. It 
still has too many crosses, too many messages 
people do not want to hear, and too many 
thankless tasks, if a man only looks upon it 
as an ordinary profession. The ministry is, 
above all other work, pursued for conscience' 
sake ; and such work is full of pain and mortal 
disappointment. Bethlehem, Judea, Geth- 
semane. Calvary, are all the schools of the true 
prophet. Like his Master, every true minister 
must sit in humiliation as he passes through 
them. He must become poor, and find his re- 
ward only in enriching others. But if, like his 
Master, he can go to the cross, and, being lifted 
upon it, draw all men to himself, his ministry 
excels the glories combined in all earthly call- 
ings. "They that turn many to righteousness 
shall shine as the stars for ever and ever." 

I am sure that more than one preacher of 



Ths Evange:ustic Pastor. 143 

splendid ability has passed through the experi- 
ence of which Dr. Dawson in his recent visit 
to this country so frankly tells with impressive 
effect, of the very radical change recently 
wrought in his own ministry in the direction 
of a more distinctively evangelistic note. ''He 
narrated the story of the result which a Free 
Church Council meeting had upon him when it 
resolved itself into a midnight expedition to the 
slums of Brighton ; how that led him to invite 
the evangelist, Gypsy Smith, to hold meetings 
in his own church, which, in turn, gave rise to 
a procession through the crowded section of 
London, headed by himself, his deacons, and 
two Salvation Army bands; and which gath- 
ered in devotees of the saloons and dance halls, 
and brought them back to the church for a mid- 
night service. When he stood up to give out 
'Rescue the Perishing,' and heard those people 
from the slums, who probably had learned the 
hymn in some Sunday-school in their child- 
hood, take it up, and sing it with much feeling, 
he was ^stirred to the heart' as never before. 
At the close of the meeting several hundred 
manifested a determined purpose to reform and 
begin a Christian life. Since then the temper 
of his Church and the nature of his ministry 



144 Thi: Evange:i.istic Awakening. 

have been distinctively evangelistic. *I came 
to see/ he said, 'that it was not worth while 
being a minister unless I could get the old Wes- 
leyan evangelistic note into my ministry. It 
is so easy, you know, to lapse into comfortable 
ways and lose the old appeal of the Gospel.' 
The outcome has been the restoration of the 
note of reality and a keen joy and interest in 
the ministry, which some time ago he was seri- 
ously disposed to give up for literary work." 
From this example every bright, earnest 
young preacher should learn as early as possible 
the lesson so important. For a ministry void 
of the soul-satisfying reward that comes of 
bringing men into the kingdom of God can 
never find anything that will keep it above the 
lucrative and preferment ideals, that take the 
very heart out of the ministry of Jesus Christ. 
EvangeUsm It is not dcsirablc, from the evan- 

Keeds Able . , , , -. . 

i^eaders. gelistic staudpomt, to make distmc- 
tion between ministers of various attainments 
and gifts, and we greatly dislike so to discrimi- 
nate; but it becomes necessary sometimes in 
order to be understood, or for emphasis. We 
shall always have men of humble gifts and 
lesser attainment, and we shall probably always 
need them. Their work is not to be discounted, 



Th^ Evange:i.istic Pastor. 145 

but their influence must be limited largely to 
their immediate field of service. They can not 
be, and ought not to be, leaders; they are not 
capable of molding the thought and guiding 
the movements of the Church at large. The 
reason v^hy so many prominent ministers and 
intelligent laymen have not been identified with 
evangelism, but have, in recent years, stood 
aloof from it, is due not a little to the class of 
men who have been emphasizing it ; and the kind 
of emphasis which such men were sure to give. 
Evangelism came principally into the control 
of men of small gifts and limited attainments, 
and thus not only lost its appeal to the stronger 
minds, but lost its virtue in a large degree for 
lack of broad, intelligent, well-balanced lead- 
ers. The majority of these more prominent 
men in the pulpits of the land had not aban- 
doned the general principle of evangelism, nor 
by any means had they surrendered the convic- 
tion of its necessity, but they had ceased to 
associate themselves with evangelistic activities 
because they could not assent to the prevailing 
thought, nor the generally adopted methods; 
many of them became so prejudiced that they 
appeared to be against evangelism itself, while 
their intention was only toward what they 
10 



146 The: Evange:i.istic Awaki:ning. 

thought to be a crude and almost vulgar mis- 
representation. Such was their attitude that 
those in control of evangelistic interests were 
able to make stock of their position, by means 
of which a wide gulf was fixed between evan- 
gelism and a very large class of cultured and 
important Church leaders. As a result, there 
obtained the feeling so widespread that evan- 
gelism and culture were incompatible. 

We are now on the eve of another evangel- 
istic awakening ; and of a movement to be more 
widespread, and having in it qualities more 
abiding, because it is not only approved by, but 
even emanates from, many most cultured, in- 
telligent, and otherwise influential sources, so 
far as human agencies are concerned. We 
must, however, consider how great a respon- 
sibility rests upon the Church in the very in- 
itiative stages of this movement, to secure to 
it early the best possible leadership, and to save 
it from the peril of falling into the hands of 
narrow and incapable leaders, and thus lose to 
it its largest usefulness and most abiding char- 
acteristics. To the reguarly ordained ministry, 
through its representative men in the pulpit, we 
must look for this leadership; we can not ex- 
pect to find it elsewhere. It is, therefore, the 



Th^ Evange:ustic Pastor. 147 

supreme duty of every intelligent and influ- 
ential minister of the evangelical Churches of 
the Christian world to set aside his prejudices, 
arouse himself from his indifference, and give 
himself with his best powers to this great move- 
ment, and so direct and temper it as to conserve 
it permanently; for unless this is done we are 
practically assured of having a repetition of 
the past. Let the men who are capable of lead- 
ership refuse to take up the work of shaping 
and directing, and it is bound to drift into the 
hands of incapable leaders, and the splendid 
opportunity of the hour will be lost. Even 
most conservative men as to evangelistic meth- 
ods are needed, as in all other great world 
movements, to modify the extremist, and help 
to strike the happy medium of a permanent 
evangelism throughout all the Church; hence 
the urgency of this idea of an evangelistic pas- 
torate, that the Church may have in the move- 
ment those important saving factors so essential 
to secure the largest and most permanent re- 
sults. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE EVANGELISTIC CHURCH. 



1. Evangrelism must not be Detached from the Church. 

2. Evangelism must be the Aim of the Church. 

3. The Source of Life and Rejuvenation. 

4. Reached by Conserving and Intensifying Normal Agencies. 

(1) The Sunday Evening Service. 

(2) The Prayer-meeting and Evangelism. 

(3) Pastors and Prayer-meetings. 

(4) The Sunday-school and Evangelism. 

(5) The Young People's Societies. 

5. Evangelism thus becomes Constructive and Aggressive. 

6. Continuous Evangelism Defined. 

7. Practical Consecration the Cost. 



chaptbr v. 

THE EVANGELISTIC CHURCH. 

The:re: are many evidences of a desire upon 
the part of the Christian world for a permanent 
basis of activity. There is, beyond doubt, a 
quite universal feeling that Christianity as a 
religion, and as the religion, has now passed 
all experimental stages ; and that what is needed 
is not further defense of faith, but direct appli- 
cation of principles. The question is no longer, 
*'Art Thou the Christ, or shall we look for 
another?'' The world is apparently satisfied 
with Him and His principles. The question 
to-day is : Are the principles capable of appli- 
cation? Is there enough living inspiration in 
the Gospel to draw men, and power enough in 
it to save them ; and what shall be the method 
by which we shall administer the kingdom of 
Jesus Christ ? These are the burning questions 
of the Church of to-day ; and from the evangel- 
istic standpoint these questions are vital; for 
as evangelical Christians we still hold that these 

151 



152 The: Evange:listic Awake:ning. 

principles have a deeper application than that 
of a mere outward reformation. **There is no 
other name under heaven given among men 
v^hereby we must be saved;'' but the saving 
virtue of that name is not merely by consent 
to a new ideal, nor submission to a lofty senti- 
ment, but because it brings men in touch with 
a new life-power. Men by it are not simply 
raised to a new realm of thought, but of being ; 
they do not merely undergo a change of mind, 
but a change of heart; their birth is not from 
within, but from above ; they have not only de- 
termined for themselves to lead a new life, but 
a new life has come to possess them ; they are 
new creatures; old things have passed away, 
and all things have become new. 

The problem is not any longer how to get 
men to believe in the converting and leavening 
power, but how shall we get the leaven in oper- 
ation forcibly, comprehensively, and continu- 
ously. It is no longer a question of how to get 
a foothold or establish a fortress in a new 
region, but how to bring the empire into sub- 
jection; no longer how shall we be able to get 
the tree rooted in the new soil, but how shall 
we grow it sufificiently to have leaves enough 
to heal the nations ; no longer the question of 



Tut Evange:i.istic Church. 153 

proving the virtue of the leaven, but of finding 
the means of getting it in touch with the vast 
lump of humanity, and making each new par- 
ticle a medium of transmutation to others, until 
the whole shall be leavened. The Church has 
studied this question long enough to be satis- 
fied that we are past the experimental stages of 
operation also, and must settle down to a uni- 
versal method of evangelism; or, in other 
words, we are convinced that we have reached 
a point where we ought to be able to apprehend 
what is to be the ultimate evangelism; for we 
shall have no continuous evangelism until we 
discover and adhere to the plan which is to be 
final in the Church of Christ. Until then evan- 
gelism will continue to be periodical. 

The ultimate evangelism will be that of an 
evangelistic Church. This evangelistic Church 
will not be reached by the possession of this 
spirit, by factions of the Church, nor by a pre- 
vailing sentiment that insists upon periodical 
efforts, but evangelism as the dominant note of 
the Church, pervading all its spirit, and fore- 
most in its plans ; not an evangelism that inaug- 
urates campaigns and goes about its work after 
a fashion that makes it special, and thus weak- 
ens it, but that aims for evangelistic results as 



154 The EvANGEuSTic Awakening. 

though they were commonplace features, and 
the normal element of the Church. 

One thing that has greatly discredited evan- 
gelism, quite as much as the professionalism of 
its leaders, is the specialization of its forces de- 
tached from the Church. For this condition 
both parties have been responsible ; the one not 
only because it believed in evangelism, but in- 
sisted upon it by demanding particular methods 
and expressions often in a spirit of intolerance 
toward the rest of the Church; the other, 
usually more influential, possibly not spiritual, 
and surely not evangelistic, had frozen out those 
of this temperamental make-up ; and as the re- 
sult of this, evangelism has come to mean move- 
ments independent and unauthorized, and thus 
to many people has become unsavory and un- 
popular. ^'Unattached and unauthorized evan- 
gelism, even by individual members of the 
Church of Christ, is, to say the least, unwise, 
and not the most fruitful of permanent results. 
I do not desire to criticise unkindly any move- 
ment that acts independently of the Churches, 
although I do not hesitate to say that I have 
grave suspicion of everything that boasts that 
it is undenominational. I have a very great 
love for everything that is interdenominational^ 



The: Evangelistic Church. 155 

which IS quite another matter. But all unat- 
tached, freelance work, unauthorized and un- 
governed by the Church, is not the best work 
possible and tends to disorder and confusion." 
But if the Church of the future is to save to 
itself a genuine evangelism, and deliver itself 
from discredit, it must make place for such 
people as detach themselves, by being suffi- 
ciently evangelistic in its controlling constitu- 
ency to be able to conserve these people and 
their efforts ; gradually molding and tempering 
them into a better evangelistic spirit ; for they, 
too, possess elements that help to keep, by their 
enkindling nature, the more retiring alive to 
evangelistic effort. The evangelistic standard 
of the Church of the future must be with more 
breadth. It must make place for all classes of 
thought and temper. The universal adapta- 
bility of the Gospel is one of the greatest funda- 
mentals of evangelism. The Church that is to 
be evangelistic must be cosmopolitan in spirit 
and life. We must have types of thought and 
temper in the Church to correspond with the 
types of thought and temper to be reached by 
the Church. There will be need of making 
place for an impulsive Peter, the inquiring 
though skeptical Thomas, and the stubborn, in- 



156 Th^ Evange:ustic Awake:ning. 

tellectual, giant-like Paul ; for we have to reach 
the men with common impulsive nature, who 
are most easily touched by the enthusiasm and 
warmth of the Christian spirit ; we have to an- 
swer with positive challenge the cool but ear- 
nest and inquiring mind, and we must not ig- 
nore the fact that it pays to be patient and meet 
as far as possible, upon his level, the man who 
is slow to see the supremacy of Jesus. Only 
thus can we become ^^all things to all men/' 
Peter exclaiming, "We believe Thou art the 
Christ,'' with his impulsive nature, furnishes 
the fervor of leadership; Thomas confessing 
"My Lord and my God,'* becomes a sub- 
stantial answer to doubt and a fortress for 
faith; and Paul bowing before his Master, 
and eagerly inquiring, "What wilt Thou 
have me to do?'* is the man who will help 
to turn the world upside-down. 
The Aim The Church that takes exception 

of the . , ^ . 

Church, to, or dcprcciatcs, evangelism, dis- 
regards the very thing for which the Church 
was organized. It is not necessary to cite in- 
stances, but simply to suggest that, without the 
subtle and overmastering power of evangelism, 
the Church could never have been credited with 
leadership in the great reforms of history; 



The: Evange:ustic Church. 157 

could never have established in all points of the 
world the missionary movements which have 
laid the foundation for world civilization. And 
in spite of the reflection that is sometimes cast 
by non-evangelistic Churches on the nature of 
this work, it may be affirmed, without fear of 
contradiction, that the Churches which have 
ignored this principle have scarcely made any 
impress upon the irreligious world. Where are 
the unbelievers whom they have changed to 
men of faith ? And where are the sinners that 
have been committed to a better life ? 

There is evidence sufficient that the Church 
that does not apply these principles makes very 
little inroad upon sin, or deep impression upon 
the community, and fails to gather directly 
from the world many people into its member- 
ship. A study of the actual membership of 
non-evangelistic Churches will reveal, to an 
amazing degree, the fact that nearly all their 
increase comes from the families of Christian 
people ; in many instances, by the mere formal 
assent to the creeds ; or in large cities, by letter 
from other Churches, or by the reinstatement 
of those who once were converted through 
evangelistic efforts; and that, apart from re- 
vivals, only a very small number of those who 



158 The: Evangkustic Awakening. 

join the orthodox Christian Churches come 
from the ranks of the world. 

An organ of one of our leading Churches, 
not especially noted for evangelism, has well 
said : ''The truth is, Jesus Christ came into the 
world to save sinners. The Church was organ- 
ized to do this work for Him. About every 
plan has been tried. Churches have reduced 
their creeds, and yet have not found the people 
thronging their doors. ]\Ien are not in sym- 
pathy with the Church until they are in accord 
with Christ." The world will not be saved by 
trying to get the creeds of the Church down 
where unbelieving men can assent to them. 
Our Unitarian and Universalist friends are all 
the time talking about how the evangelicals are 
continually coming to their views; but if we 
are, it is a doubtful compliment to our position 
and mission in the Christian world, when they 
themselves are obliged to admit that they are 
losing ground as Churches all the while. Only 
as the Church is committed to a definite evan- 
gelistic aim can she accomplish her mission of 
seeking and saving the lost. 

If an organized Christianity is essential to 
the advancement of the kingdom and Church 
life, fellowship, and activity are the best 



The Evange:i.istic Church. 159 

modes of operation, then there must be some 
means of rejuvenation by which to perpetu- 
ate the life of the Church. The Church for 
The source ^ome time past has been swinging 
and'i^juve- ^way from extreme emphasis upon 
'*^"**^* what Christ has done for us, to a 
larger emphasis upon what we must do for our- 
selves. In other words, evangelicalism and 
morality have been too widely separated; and 
in the process of this very essential reform the 
danger is, that we shall swing so far to the 
other extreme as to make the Church only an 
institution of ethical ideals, by emphasis upon 
morality and disregard for spirituality. The 
Christian Church as an organization is supreme 
in its lofty moral standard; but here it parts 
company with all merely ethical institutions, 
because it possesses a spiritual life, not of senti- 
ment and enthusiasm, but of a genuine sense 
of God in the soul and a religious fervor born 
of that blessed consciousness. Rob the Church 
of this, and you rob it of its self-perpetuating 
power. This spirituality can not be had by 
talking about it, but by doing the things which 
cultivate it; the unselfish things that lift one's 
life out of the realm of the sordid and material- 
istic by keeping it close in touch with the spirit 



i6o Thd Evangelistic Awakening. 

and mission of the Master. The vision of God 
is gained by being face to face with Him who 
declared the Father; and companionship with 
Him is found in the life of redemptive service. 
The Church can not be possessed of genuine 
spirituality if it does not carry upon its heart 
the burden of Him who came to seek and to 
save that which was lost. 

There are Churches that lament the lack of 
growth, though well equipped and auspiciously 
located; about the only rejoicing they have is 
in letters gathered from other Churches, which 
means nothing for the advancement of the king- 
dom. They forget that unless they learn to 
grow otherwise, to-morrow their ranks will be 
depleted by an equal exit. We are familiar 
with Churches of this character that for years, 
by virtue of their situation, have taken five 
members by letter for every one thus dismissed, 
and yet their congregations have not increased 
in the slightest, and their prayer-meetings in 
attendance and interest are unchanged. We 
are acquainted with facts concerning more than 
one city where the Churches of a single great 
denomination have scarcely more than held 
their own; and, but for those who have come 
from rural districts and other cities, would by 



Thi: EvANGEivisTic Church. 161 

no means have sustained their membership ; and 
this in cities of rapidly growing population. 
This is unquestionably due to the fact that, for 
ten years at least, there has been no general 
evangelistic movement in these cities, and no 
great and genuine revival in any single Church. 
Our great and influential Churches must be 
made to see that neither ability in the pulpit, 
nor intelligence, social prestige, or financial rep- 
resentation in the pew, can permanently save 
the Church from a collapse through spiritual 
decline; unless emphasis is placed upon the 
evangelizing mission of the Church, we shall 
dry up the very fountains of Christian growth, 
and paralyze the sources of spiritual energy. 

This is not only important from the stand- 
point of furnishing recruits for the ranks of 
the laity, but for the ministry as well. The 
chief publication of one of the great denomi- 
nations noted, not long since, the large number 
of its leading ministers that had come from 
other denominations. It mentioned the names 
of four men in particular, of national reputa- 
tion, every one of whom had been converted 
by the evangelistic efforts of another denomi- 
nation ; and commented thus : '*A denomination 
that has not life in itself to furnish its ablest 
II 



1 62 Ths Evange:listic Awakening. 

leaders can not grow, maintain its best tra- 
ditions, and foster enthusiasm to carry on its 
work/' And it is evident from conditions ob- 
taining, which make it difficult even for those 
Churches that have furnished so many for 
others heretofore to supply their own pulpits, 
that the preachers and leaders of the past have 
been largely born and given to the Church 
through the rejuvenating power of evangelism. 
Conserve From all prcvious observations 
inteSsify thcrc is evidcncc that the Church 

Formal 

Agencies, has reached the pomt where she is 
anxious to diminish, rather than increase, 
formal organizations; aware that one great 
weakness of the period through which we have 
been passing was the attempt to organize Chris- 
tian forces in some new fashion, as the result 
of which the Church has been nearly organized 
to death, dissipating the major part of her 
power. It has been wisely observed that 'Svhat 
the Church needs is not more harness, but more 
horse." We can not hope to increase our powder 
unless we diminish the machinery which ex- 
hausts nearly all resources in its running. 
Alany Churches are a veritable ''hive of in- 
dustry,'' where the people gather almost every 
night in the week, and yet the product of the 



Thi: Evange:listic Church. 163 

real thing for which the Church stands is hardly 
perceptible. Whatever of significance these 
may have in securing indirect attachment to 
the Church, if upon these we are to depend for 
the Christianizing of the world, the millennium 
is a long way off. 

We are now beginning to realize, also, that 
there is dissipation, not only in organization 
within the Church, but often as much dissipa- 
tion in multiplying religious services. These 
are strenuous times, in which people, both in 
departments of mental and physical activities, 
are pressed to their utmost ; and the attempt to 
force additional services, multiplying them in- 
definitely, often dissipates whatever zeal people 
ordinarily possess. There is only one course 
open to the Church for successful evangelistic 
effort; and it is a good thing sometimes to be 
shut up to one course, for then there is some 
chance of concentrating and conserving energy. 
It is sincerely hoped that the repeated failure 
of Churches of all denominations to find any 
successful solution to the problem of how to 
gain the attention, and secure the salvation of 
the people, with every variety of plan, will now 
be persuaded to settle down to an acceptance 
of the original declaration, that there is no 



164 The: Evange:ustic Awakening. 

other name, that Christ, if He is lifted up, will 
draw, and that the Gospel is the only power 
unto salvation. We believe there is a growing 
feeling among many preachers and Christian 
leaders, amid the vexations of multiplied soci- 
eties and services, that we would be stronger by 
far if we had only the Church. How many 
such pastors of large and burdensome Churches 
have cried out in their distraction and depres- 
sion, "O for a Church, only a Church, and noth- 
ing else!" — a Church with its essential services, 
to which, without strife and confusion, the peo- 
ple might give themselves, adding strength and 
stability to the same, and making the people of 
the community feel the dignity of its position 
by the supremacy of its mission beside all other 
institutions with which at present the Church 
often competes fruitlessly. 

There are a few orders of service and modes 
of activity which have been so long a part of 
Church life, and have survived all innovations, 
have been almost universally adopted and 
equally fruitful, that it seems perfectly clear 
that the future success of the Church must de- 
pend upon magnifying these, and concentrating 
interest and energy in them. Indeed, it may be 
safely affirmed that had this been done in the 



The EvANGi^LisTic Church. 165 

past^ we should have accomplished infinitely 
more, and a better opinion of the Church would 
have been retained in the community. We need 
not emphasize, particularly, the regular Sabbath 
services of the Church, as such are universal, 
and not susceptible to any particular change; 
but it may be fitting to consider briefly the em- 
phasis that may be placed upon these services 
with regard to the matter of evangelism. The 
idea of worship is supposed to be pre-eminent, 
and instead of detracting from this in the aver- 
age non-ritualistic Church, we would add some- 
what; for it is often a real weakness of these 
Churches that they have so magnified enter- 
taining music and attractive preaching that the 
majesty of worship is largely absent, and that 
the devotional spirit, so religiously educational 
to young and old, is not in force, but displaced 
often by a spirit of self-gratification and some- 
times of criticism; thus the service is void of 
reverence and our young people lose their re- 
spect for the house of God. But to the extent 
that Sabbath services have their direct pro- 
ductive features, there are some things which 
we may emphasize as capable of adding to the 
evangelistic force of the Church. The preach- 
ing of Sabbath morning should seek to instruct 



i66 The: Evangi:ustic Awake:ning. 

in the great fundamentals of doctrine and prin- 
ciples of experience, character, and life; and 
this for those who have come into the Church, 
enabling Christianity to get its strongest pos- 
sible hold upon them, making them feel its sig- 
nificance by bringing them into such attach- 
ment to its interests as to save them from that 
vast throng of nominal Christians who become 
a burden to the Church and a stumbling block 
to all evangelistic efforts. Its preaching at reg- 
ular intervals should be such as to keep the 
Church alive to the work of saving the people, 
and, at periods of special order, to press more 
definitely the immediate claims of Christianity 
upon those attendant upon its services. 

We deem extremely important the 

The Sunday c^ . . • u x -^ i 

Evening buuday evcumg service; but it has 
received so generous treatment in a 
number of recent publications that we refrain 
from an extended discussion. Suffice it to say, 
that no Church will succeed in any large meas- 
ure in becoming evangelistic that can not se- 
cure a Sunday evening congregation made up 
largely of non-Christian people; and until we 
can make our pastors feel that this service is 
most important, so much so that it can not be 



The) Evangelistic Church. 167 

dismissed through any part of the year, nor 
displaced by anything else, and until we can 
get our representative people to feel that their 
presence can not be spared at such a service, 
we can not have an evangelistic Church. For 
the most part of the year, at least, the preach- 
ing should be of a directly evangelistic order, 
and definite results aimed for; not perhaps in 
every service, but as the rule; whether in the 
immediate service or a well-ordered after meet- 
ing. We would not attach so much importance 
to the peculiarity of the themes, the genius of 
advertising, or the novelty of manipulation. 
We would be slow to reflect upon anything that 
has proven useful; but we not only hesitate 
to recommend methods and programs, but 
rather discourage emphasis upon these, confi- 
dent that such are only temporary stimulants, 
and not the real cure. The success of the Sun- 
day evening service for an evangelistic effect 
must not depend upon so unstable factors; the 
intense, earnest, loyal devotion of the people, 
the magnetism of strong, thoughtful, soulful, 
earnest sermons, and a simple, but profound 
faith in the old but unworn story, intelligently, 
fairly, and impassionately preached, are the 



1 68 The: Evangelistic Awakicning. 

only abiding elements of a popular and ef- 
fective Sunday evening service. 
The Prayer- ^^ cvangcHstic Church will be an 
Meeting, impossibility unless larger impor- 
tance is attached to the midweek service. The 
people must be willing to lay aside their social 
engagements and business cares, and reserve 
enough energy to give force and attractiveness 
to the prayer-meeting. And this interest must 
be by people of best standing and largest in- 
fluence. There has been a disposition in the 
average Church to permit those in lower ranks 
of society, a large majority of them women, 
to be responsible for this service, detracting 
from its character by the absence of candor 
and sturdiness so much needed. This allows 
an impression to obtain, also, upon the part 
of the world, that such services are beneath 
the consideration of the more important people. 
It is altogether too frequently the case that a 
majority of the officials of Churches, who to 
the world are its representatives, only rarely, 
if ever, darken the doors of the Church prayer- 
room. They either lack in the essence of re- 
ligious life, or consider themselves too busy to 
give an evening to this kind of service. If rep- 
resentative people of the Church ignore the 



The; Evangeustic Church. 169 

prayer-meeting, the place for instruction, in- 
spiration, and drill in spiritual and evangelistic 
activities, we can not expect a genuinely evan- 
gelistic Church. Some of the busiest men of 
largest public and commercial responsibility we 
have ever known, have found it possible, and 
indeed desirable, to pre-empt prayer-meeting 
night, and have given themselves side by side 
with those of humbler life in the performance 
of simple Christian service. We can have no 
evangelistic Church until we can induce our 
most intelligent and otherwise influential people 
to give themselves in larger measure to this 
work. Church officials must be chosen less 
with reference to ability and willingness to 
support the Church financially, or because of 
representative place in the community, but more 
by reason of intelligent and consistent devotion 
to the chief things for which the Church stands, 
the salvation of the people. 

Standing one day at a station, waiting for 
a train to move, a fine-looking, well-dressed, 
very intelligent gentleman stepped up to me 
and made himself known. After some refer- 
ence to Church and religious matters in gen- 
eral, he said, "I am a commercial traveler; I 
sell goods to pay expenses, but my business is 



170 The Evanguustic Awakening. 

to serve Jesus Christ." Let that idea obtain 
in the life of the representative men of the laity 
at large, and what a force they would become 
by impressing the world with their appreciation 
of the importance of Christian life and work! 
There must be a deeper consecration to the 
captivating ideal of Christianity which brought 
one of the biggest men that God ever made to 
such a conception of the value of humble serv- 
ice that he exclaimed, ^'For to me to live is 
Christ." Our people do find time for other 
things outside the Church, and they can usually 
be persuaded to attend social functions within 
the church. Indeed, many of our Churches are 
crowded with activities, until there is almost 
strife and confusion through competitive soci- 
eties night after night, while the weekly prayer- 
meeting drags on (weakly), sustained only by 
the faithful few. 

Riding one day on one of our great inter- 
urban electric cars, I remarked to the conductor 
that he was making unusual speed. He said, 
"We can do this because this car has the right 
of way." The cars conflicting were obliged 
to yield the track at every point. An evangel- 
istic Church will keep the tracks clear, and give 
the Gospel of salvation right of way. We must 



Th^ EvANGEiyiSTic Church. 171 

insist upon sufficient emphasis upon the prayer- 
meeting, and make it as attractive as anything 
to which the doors of the church open from 
Sunday to Sunday; and make every Church 
member feel that it is more important than any 
business meeting, social function, or public 
service; so that from social pleasures, private 
desires, public life, and commercial cares, men 
and women will halt midway the week's busy, 
burdensome life, and refresh and strengthen 
their souls, and fill anew their life with the un- 
selfish impulses that send them forth to seek 
and save the lost. 
Pastorg and We must uot attach all the re- 

Prayer- 

Meetings. spousibility for the lack of interest 
in, and devotion to, the prayer-meeting, to the 
Church members. The fact that often the peo- 
ple of sturdy thought and character do not 
frequent this service, is due in no little measure 
to the weak and sentimental spirit that often 
controls it, and failure upon the part of the 
pastors to conduct a service worthy of their 
attention. Pastors too frequently go into the 
prayer-meeting with no particular preparation, 
trusting to some spontaneous development of 
thought to give trend to the meeting; and it 
often happens that some good but sentimental 



172 The; Evangelistic Awakening. 

person, or some religious fanatic, will break the 
spell of such a service, into which no thought 
has been injected, by remarks which will wreck 
all its possibilities. 

It is true that people should go to the prayer- 
meeting with the idea of prayer as pre-eminent ; 
but most people coming from the busy world, 
some from surroundings everything but favor- 
able to devotion, will need a brief, earnest, 
pungent address to put them in an attitude of 
genuine devotion and earnest supplication. 
Pastors must make themselves efficient in con- 
ducting such a service by as much care in prep- 
aration as for the work of the Sabbath. The 
writer has never failed to have well-attended 
and interesting prayer-meetings ; but it has been 
accomplished by never going to prayer-meeting 
without as careful preparation as for a Sunday 
morning service. Thought must be given to 
such service, not to consider it a mere mid- 
week attachment. Thus we may get hold of 
the thinking people, and make them think after 
we get them ; for it is one of the chief ends of 
the ministry to make people think. By such 
emphasis and such attention to the prayer- 
meeting, the Church may be kept alive ; and by 
keeping upon its heart the matter of saving the 



Th^ Evange:ustic Church. 173 

people, this service may become one of the most 
potent factors in continuous evangehsm. 
The Sunday. ^^ is generally conceded that the 
School, weakest point of evangelism in re- 
cent years has been the lack of concern for the 
boys and girls of our Sunday-schools. It is 
probably fair to say that, in the average Sun- 
day-school, from thirty to fifty per cent of the 
scholars from ages of eight to twenty years 
have been unconverted, and most of them in no 
way committed to the Christian life ; and while 
we have found it impossible to get anything 
like such a percentage of unconverted people 
in our ordinary Sunday services, and have dur- 
ing these years conducted week after week of 
revival service in which we were fortunate if 
we secured ten per cent of unconverted people 
in attendance, still we have overlooked the fact 
that we have had every Sunday in the best pos- 
sible relation to Christian expediencies this very 
large and important class of material which we 
have almost utterly neglected. We have adver- 
tised, planned, hired evangelists and singers, 
have made canvass after canvass to secure at- 
tendance upon evangelistic services of the out- 
side world, who, for the most part, have ig- 
nored us and have gone their way, leaving our 



174 Thi: Evangelistic Awakening. 

meetings to be conducted in the interest only 
of an occasional sinner, or a few backsliders 
who warm over at every periodical revival, 
while all this time we have had before us scores 
of the brightest and best boys and girls and 
young people in the community, and we have 
scarcely spent a tithe in any special way in try- 
ing to get them converted to Christ. 

During these years, and, indeed, ever since 
the radical change of thought wrought by the 
Wesleyan revival, the Church has been in pos- 
session of the correct theory of children and the 
kingdom ; but has only in the most limited de- 
gree put that theory into practice. Several 
things have hindered the Church in this respect ; 
as has been well said, soon after the coming 
of the revival heretofore mentioned, "Dramatic 
conversions became the goal of the Church," 
and the same evidences of conversion were de- 
manded of children as of adults ; then later the 
modern evangelistic method, with its vast rou- 
tine and defined accompaniments, was intro- 
duced, — all of w^hich is unadaptable to the sim- 
plicity of childhood and youth; and above all 
was the lack of concern which obtained, mani- 
festing the gross inconsistency that demanded 
distinct and unmistakable evidences of conver- 



The: Evange:ustic Church. 17^ 



/o 



sion in children as in adults, and yet hardly to 
any extent sought their conversion. As the 
result of this line of education for so many 
years, we find it extremely difficult to bring 
ourselves to feel that a twelve or fifteen-year- 
old boy or girl is to be taken up as a proposition 
as serious and important as a man pr woman 
of forty or fifty. 

The average pastor will find himself greatly 
concerned about the slightest indication of in- 
terest in religious matters upon the part of a 
non-church goer, will take such a case in hand, 
and stay by it for weeks with great devotion; 
while he would be comparatively indifferent to 
any such interest manifested upon the part of 
a bright boy or girl in the Sunday-school. We 
have not been helped much by the mechanical 
plan in common use by evangelists, for it is not 
suited to children; pastors have sometimes 
turned their boys and girls over to such, and 
have permitted an evangelist to play upon their 
emotions, or bring them into captivity to his 
machinery; because this has had no depth of 
meaning to them, it has not been abiding ; and 
thus evangelistic work among them has been 
discredited. These young folks are simple in 
their nature, and need simple methods; and it 



176 Th^ Evange:listic Awakening. 
¥ 

is a grave mistake to use other means ; a mis- 
take that may result in an evil that years can 
not correct. Almost anybody with a strong ap- 
peal to emotions or a well-manipulated service, 
can secure the consent of the average boy or 
girl; but these young people should be com- 
mitted to the Christian life with greatest care ; 
while we make the way simple and plain, and 
as easy of access as possible, in turn it should 
be made sufficiently hard to have some mean- 
ing, and the cross should not be eliminated; 
if it is, it will be discovered later, and will 
become a stumbling block. In the conduct of 
such a service the leader should insist one by 
one that these persons understand fully the sig- 
nificance of the step taken. Then, too much 
must not be expected by way of radical change. 
They will not prove less consistent than adults, 
though their inconsistency may manifest itself 
in other ways. They should not be discounted 
as they often are. 

A pastor may deem it wise to make mental 
discount, but they should never suspect it. 
Boys and girls do not like to be discounted, 
and it is a mistake frequently made to say in 
public or in reports, fifty conversions, and be- 



Thd EvANGEivisTic Church. 177 

sides a large number of boys and girls. If the 
pastor stays by these as he would by some 
prominent but notorious character endeavoring 
to reform, he will save most of them. When 
such a person expresses a purpose to lead a 
better life, the whole Church gets on its broad 
cloak of charity, and every man considers him- 
self a special committee to look after this one, 
a fitting thing to do ; but is this man whose life 
is largely wasted worth more than a bright boy 
of fifteen years? The Church must learn to 
stop the leakage ; while we are endeavoring to 
save a few persons, many of whom have little 
service in them for Christ and the Church, we 
are letting splendid boys and girls slip up in 
their teens and out into the world, to become 
in a few years what these are, that we find so 
hard to get even inside the Church. In a genu- 
inely evangelistic Church every Sunday-school 
teacher will feel that his or her duty is some- 
thing more than that of entertainment or in- 
struction in great moral and spiritual truths; 
that the position demands that the teacher shall 
not only have the attention of the scholars and 
attach them to herself and the school, but that 
the supreme end to be reached is the committal 
12 



178 The: Evangelistic Awake:ning. 

of these boys and girls to a definite purpose to 
lead a Christian life, and that all teaching that 
falls short of that is unsatisfactory. 

Young: The youns: people's societies are 

People's / & r r 

Societies, not of SO long standing in the 
Church as to be considered absolutely indis- 
pensable, or to make it possible, from the past, 
to prophesy of the future; yet these have been 
with us long enough and have become suffi- 
ciently universal to be given consideration as 
one of the important agencies of Christian 
activity. We feel confident that their future 
depends upon their vital relation to the subject 
now before us. How shall we hold our young 
people to the Church until they are converted, 
and how shall we be able to commit to an ear- 
nest Christian life those who are within the 
Church ? are perplexing questions that concern 
every earnest pastor. We need to define what 
we mean by holding them to the Church. Is 
it simply to get them in good associations and 
under favorable influences? Indeed, no one 
will discount this; but have we not weakened 
our position as Churches with them, by making 
them feel that this is sufficient? We get them 
into an organization, and often the organiza- 
tion begets more problems than it solves. We 



The: Evanct:ustic Church. 179 

attempt to please and gratify them, and at the 
same time keep them from compromising the 
Church by what they do in its name, largely 
because the society does not stand for the same 
thing that the Church stands for, or else the 
Church itself has lost sight of its real mission. 
It is not enough to hold these young people 
merely on the social fringes of the Church ; they 
must become evangelized, and be made evan- 
gelists, if the Church of to-morrow is to have 
the spirit and power necessary with which to 
fulfill its ever-increasing mission of evangel- 
izing the world. These young people, bubbling 
over with energy which may be easily dissipated 
to fruitless ends, must be so controlled and 
directed that this vast power may be conserved ; 
and if the Church can be dominated by an all- 
controlling spirit of evangelism, these young 
people will not be a problem, but one of the 
mightiest factors which the Church possesses. 
Their meetings will not be longer tame and 
monotonous, but inspiring and forceful, if 
under the direction of a definite evangelistic 
aim and spirit. They make the best possible 
workers with their unconventional and natural 
ways ; what they do is attractive, because spon- 
taneous and hearty; their enthusiastic songs, 



i8o The: Evangelistic Awakening. 

direct prayers, and simple testimonies contrib- 
ute sympathy, impressiveness, and warmth to 
the service; and as helpers of pastors they sur- 
pass, because of their willingness to be led and 
even directed what to do. 

When we observe how rapidly the young 
people of our homes, Sunday-schools, and con- 
gregations drift away from the Church as soon 
as they get out into the world, and how com- 
paratively small a number of boys and girls 
the Church tides over from the Sunday-school 
into the young people's societies, and then into 
Church membership, this question is not only 
urgent but alarming. We seem to be com- 
mitted to a prevailing notion that, during this 
period, young people can not be reached with 
the Gospel, because they are not in an attitude 
of sufficient seriousness to be strongly appealed 
to by religious matters. Admitting that this is 
in part true, yet a moment's reflection will bring 
the conviction that, with all the difficulties 
which beset us in gaining the interest of these, 
because life has not yet been touched suffi- 
ciently by its somber features to make it to them 
serious, these difficulties nevertheless are not 
to be compared with those that we encounter 
when we attempt to reach men and women who 



Th^ Evangeustic Church. i8i 

have sealed their lives in indifference or stub- 
bornness, or have buried them in depths of 
worldliness. One of the things that makes the 
Church weak with the young people is, that it 
often attempts to capture them through a soft, 
sentimental piety, or a morose and other-world 
religiousness. They are not attracted by that 
kind of representation of Christianity; and they 
will not be frightened, in any large measure, 
into these things, because they feel that this is 
cowardly and lacking in the right motive. 
They do believe in Christianity, and that almost 
without exception; they are simpl)^ waiting to 
see a representation of it in downright, intelli- 
gent earnestness, that makes them feel the 
Christian life is worth while. They are filled 
with energy, ambition, and hopefulness, and a 
religious life that takes hold of men and pos- 
sesses them, will appeal to them and cause them 
to stop, think, and change their course. 

Evangelism Many pastors have been quite as 

Becomes Hiuch pcrplcxcd with the question. 

Constructive u^^^^^ ^^^ rcvival, what ?'' as with 

Progressive. ^^^ question, ^^How shall we secure 
a revival ?'' Not enough consideration has been 
given in the past to the fact that a revival is 
**a remedy for a condition of things that should 



1 82 The: Evange:ustic Awakening. 

never have existed." The very term presup- 
poses the loss of normal life and the necessity 
of restoring it. Much of the weakness of evan- 
gelism has been due to too much emphasis upon 
the temporary remedy, rather than the con- 
structive character of genuine Christianization. 
"The making over of men can never be equal 
to the making of men/' needs to be applied 
to adults as well as children ; for a large meas- 
ure of the ineffectiveness of revivals has been 
due to the lack of preparation, and careful 
training after. The Church that aims at con- 
tinuous evangelism through its regular services 
and by normal activities is sure to acquire 
larger possibilities in this respect, and produce 
a better type of Christians because of the man- 
ner in which they are led up to the point of 
decision by earnest reflection and thoughtful 
consideration of the cost. The surroundings 
and impulses continuously prevailing are such 
as to establish character ; avoiding the reaction, 
making the Church progressive, causing men 
to grow in grace, depending less upon the 
satisfaction of a past experience, and more 
upon the constant birth from above. Thus 
the question, "After the revival, what?" is 
chiefly solved, because in an evangelistic 



The: Evangelistic Church. 183 

Church the normal conditions, both before 
and after conversion, are such as emphasize 
quite as much the constructive as the remedial 
process of regeneration. 
continuons In Contending* for an evansfelistic 
Qualified. Church wc must not put too much 
emphasis upon continuous evangelism, unless 
we carefully define that phrase. An evangel- 
istic Church of the character for which we 
plead, and which we believe must be final, is 
not a Church where conversions must occur 
in every service, but rather where they may 
occur, and will, in most services. We need to 
guard against the danger of measures that will 
produce another movement of mechanical evan- 
gelism. We must give less attention to book- 
keeping and the disposition to count people who 
are converted, and credit ourselves with the 
achievement. There will be no ultimate evan- 
gelism until the ministry swings away from the 
selfish standard of merely keeping up or in- 
creasing the Church membership. Continuous 
evangelism should be emphasized with the idea 
of having the Church in such condition, and the 
preaching of such an order, that whenever, in 
his judgment, the pastor deems it prudent to 
open the door for public decision for Christ, 



1 84 The: Evange:i.istic Awakic^ning. 

the very atmosphere will contribute to the sal- 
vation of men; in other words, the Church is 
not to be a factory where things are mechanic- 
ally produced, but rather an incubator where 
out of prevailing conditions there bursts the 
new life. The Church that may be most prop- 
erty characterized as evangelistic has about it 
no evidence of unusual effort or special method. 
It is a Church where work is done and services 
are conducted as though these conditions were 
ordinary and normal ; yet a Church, every serv- 
ice of which is characterized by a simple but 
intense earnestness in what is said and done 
upon the part of preacher and people, that 
makes everybody feel who comes within the 
doors that Christianity means something. Out 
of such conditions souls will be born, not as by 
mechanism, but as by magic. 
Practical We recently listened to an ex- 

Consecration , 

the Cost, tended and very interesting discus- 
sion in a conference on evangelism, where 
preachers were exhorting laymen, and laymen 
were exhorting preachers, and every man who 
spoke had a well-defined conviction of the 
weakness of the Church on the one hand, the 
secret of success on the other; but not one of 



The Evangelistic Church. 185 

these laymen or preachers offered to exhibit the 
product of his ideas. 

We passed out of that meeting in company 
with an intelligent, earnest, active, practical 
layman, who, shrugging his shoulders, said, 
''Why do n't they do it?" This is an age for 
doing things. Men may talk, discuss, theorize, 
but philosophy that is workable is the only kind 
that grips the world of to-day. We can not 
have an evangelistic Church unless we are will- 
ing to pay the cost. Consecration that will 
make possible such a condition is not a mere 
altar consecration ; such a consecration is fitting 
and expedient, but the altar must be something 
more than a place where we promise God what 
we will do. The altar must signify more as 
a principle than as a place. It is useless to 
bring the Church to the altar for consecration, 
then send it forth again to pursue the same life ; 
misleading it to believe in the virtue of what 
was done there, rather than in the virtue of 
what must be done as it goes forth to a life of 
service. We have had a large amount of altar 
consecrations, but nothing to correspond with 
it in the life of the Church. Let men come to 
the altar as a result of a fixed purpose, and thus 



1 86 The: Evangelistic Awakening. 

make more sacred this purpose by a public vow ; 
but we should not compel the people to this act 
of consecration as though it were possessed of 
peculiar potency. It is easier to exercise faith 
in a supernatural religion with which to achieve 
the miracle of saving the world, than to pay the 
actual cost of the world's redemption. 

God has been giving us such agencies as the 
apostles did not have, and as no other age pos- 
sessed; and He expects the miracles of to-day 
to be in the manifestation of unselfish devotion 
of the splendid gifts of power that He has put 
into our hands. Christ could afford to feed a 
hungry multitude by multiplying loaves and 
fishes when there were no more ; but Christ can 
not afford to feed any hungry multitude thus, 
when His consecrated disciples who profess to 
have left all to follow Him have plenty with 
which to feed them. What do subtle, mysteri- 
ous miracles amount to in the absence of that 
most marvelous product of Christianity, an un- 
selfish life? When by what we do, how we 
live, and by the intense earnestness of our serv- 
ice, we convince men that Christianity is every- 
thing to us, it will send a spiritual shock 
through this old world greater in effect than 
any Pentecost, old or new. Because of the 



The Evangeustic Church. 187 

small fraction of time and energy now devoted 
by the average Christian to the cause of Jesus 
Christ, we do not convince the world that we 
feel we must be about our Father's business, 
and that this to us is the first consideration. It 
is easier to talk piously, to believe unqualifiedly, 
to sing and pray with zest, than actually to "do 
something." 

Suppose our people whose lives are sur- 
rounded by intense influences, living strenu- 
ously — professional men, business men, work- 
ing men, society women, and mothers — were to 
turn one-tenth of their time, thought, and 
energy into the channels of Christian service, 
not set apart in so many exact hours or mites, 
but as the spontaneous expression of a principle 
great enough to have become a passion, — then 
shall we have a revival that will set the Church 
on fire with zeal for service, and kindle the 
Christian world with a new passion for souls. 

The ultimate evangelism will not be ex- 
pressed in great local upheavals and periodical 
religious revolutions, but in straightforward 
devotion to the Church of Christ when pos- 
vSessed of the spirit of evangelism, with inherent 
ability to replenish its life apart from special 
seasons of refreshing, and power enough to 



1 88 The: Evange^ustic Awake:ning. 

impart the leaven of redemption to the sinful 
world day by day. Let such a Church as this 
obtain, and the kingdoms of this world will 
melt away, and we shall begin to pray with a 
new faith and hope, "Thy kingdom come." 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE 
WORLD. 



1. World Evangelization Involves Evangelism. 

2. The Gospel for the World must be Evangelistic. 

3. The Evangelistic Church an Evangelizing Church. 

4. The Demand of the Hour. 

Conclusion. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE 
WORLD. 

The) Church no longer assumes the position 
that "God will convert the heathen when He 
gets ready," but accepts the responsibility that 
the heathen will be converted when the Church 
gets ready. For more than a century has the 
Protestant Church turned its ear toward the 
East, the West, the North, the South, to catch 
the Macedonian cry from benighted islands, 
from great continents with their misty deserts, 
and from behind towering walls of pagan civil- 
izations; and through this time a few heroic 
souls have set sail for these barbarous islands, 
have blazed a pathway through the deserts and 
jungles, and have risked their lives in attempts 
to pry through the mighty walls of paganism. 
Now the islands are near at hand, the path 
through the desert has been thrown open to a 
veritable highway, and the walls of the na- 
tions have crumbled, while the steamboat, 

191 



192 The; EvANGEusTic Awakejninc. 

railway, telegraph, and telephone have brought 
the world into one great assembly-room, and 
they who will, may find their way down the 
vast aisles to remotest humanity yet untouched 
by the Gospel of Christ. 
World Evan- Some nations and peoples in his- 

^^volvef tory have been captured, subdued. 
Evangelism. ^^^ brought nominally in subjection 
to Christian standards as represented either by 
State or Church ; but no nation in history has 
ever thus been evangelized. We have before us 
at the present time a vivid illustration in a great 
populous nation, for ages under Church and 
State control in the name of Christianity, but 
the people are far away in actual life from 
the real things for which Christianity stands; 
and, instead of being elevated, are more degen- 
erate than the nations that only yesterday 
emerged from heathen darkness. 

The Gospel Thosc Churchcs that represent 

for the . , 

World only the ideal and ethical features of 

Must Be ^ 

Evangeustic. Christianity, and endeavor to lift 
humanity by securing the acceptance of its doc- 
trines and philosophy of life, and committing 
men to its standards of purity, righteousness, 
and benevolence, have never yet succeeded as 
missioners to the lost sons of men. Such 



EvANGE:lIZATION O^ THE) WORLD. 1 93 

Churches may help to elevate and idealize the 
life of a very limited class of people, but they 
lack that pungency of teaching and the leverage 
necessary to uplift the enslaved masses of 
heathen and pagan races. This, we think, needs 
no particular statement of defense. A casual 
observer easily notes the helplessness of all un- 
evangelical and also non-evangelistic Churches, 
in grappling with the problem of the redemp- 
tion of the heathen. The Church that has a 
creed, long or short, that does not plant the 
cross squarely down in the center of it, empha- 
sizing its atoning and redeeming power, can 
do little in regenerating this old world. The 
preaching of the Gospel that does not make pre- 
eminent the picture of '^Him who was wounded 
for our transgressions, bruised for our in- 
iquities," and burn into the very consciences of 
men the significance of pierced hands and feet 
and thorn-crowned brow, will never lift this 
world to the level of the kingdom of God ; be- 
cause it does not give to men that faith, hope, 
and courage that is born of a positive assurance 
of Divine favor. Others may infatuate men 
with dreams of the beauty of the Sermon on 
the Mount, which makes every man feel that 
he has come face to face with the loftiest ideal 
13 



194 ^he: Evange:listic Awak^ninc. 

that ever entranced human vision; but by a 
crossless Church and a crossless Gospel the en- 
slaved world of humanity will never be able to 
realize to itself this dream, and the kingdoms 
of this world will never become the kingdom 
of our Christ. Until men have gone by the 
way of the Hill of Calvary, they can never 
reach the Mount of Beatitudes. Between the 
mount of idealism portraying the glory of the 
kingdom of God and the lowly level upon which 
humanity stands, eagerly looking toward some 
hoped-for Canaan, must be placed midway the 
mighty leverage of the redemptive power of 
the cross of Christ. 

The Church needs the cross, not 
^ch^chl^n only for atonement, but the spirit of 
^"^chi^^^?^ the cross for the self-denying enter- 
prises of the kingdom. Only as the 
Church is committed to the life of "mending 
what others have broken," of building up what 
others have torn down, of living to right the 
wrongs she did not cause, exalting those she 
did not abase, and saving the people for whose 
condition she has not been responsible, and 
in whose redemption there may come no per- 
sonal gain ; only as the Church looks upon, and 
goes to the heathen world, as its Master came 



EVANGEWZATION 01^ TH^ WORIvD. 1 95 

to the whole world, to die for men while they 
were yet sinners, can she fulfill the mission 
of world evangelization. We must be able to 
convince, and force upon the very conscience 
of the Church the real working principle of 
Christianity. This is not difficult because of 
lack of evidence, but because the cross is still 
hard to bear. We readily accept the blessed 
fact that He died, the Just for the unjust; that 
"greater love hath no man than this, that a 
man lay down his life for his friends." We all 
believe that the cross is the lever by which alone 
this old world, throbbing with new life, swings 
back toward the throne of God. In theory the 
Christian Church accepts the principle that the 
leaven must be lost in the lump, if the lump is 
to be leavened ; that except a man lose his life, 
he shall not find it; we all with one consent 
accept the doctrine of the cross, but with almost 
equal unanimity do we falter before the life of 
the cross; and it is not because we shall be 
beheaded, burned at stakes, tortured in dun- 
geons, **despised and rejected of men," but be- 
cause of a meaning deeper and more opposed 
to our poor, sluggish, sleeping natures, and to 
our world ambitions, aspirations, and indul- 
gences ; because we are not willing to give our 



196 The: EvANGBLisTic Awakening. 

lives away, not willing to step into the breach 
that sin has made, to '^mend what others have 
broken/' Evangelistic Christianity demands 
not only a cross for atonement, but demands 
the spirit of the cross in turn re-enacted in the 
life of the Church, making the Church more 
anxious to save the world than to be happy and 
self-satisfied. 

We are sure that no thoughtful person who 
has become at all familiar with the tremendous 
movements of the Christian religion and its 
triumphs under difficulty, can fail to be confi- 
dent that, nominally, Christianity's triumph is 
perfectly secure. The danger of to-day is not 
so much in the complex problems of the social, 
civic, and commercial life at home, nor in the 
almost incomprehensible problem of the mil- 
lions surrounded by densest darkness, and the 
barriers that again and again rise and retard 
the work of God in heathen lands. It is not 
strange that, when brought seriously face to 
face with these problems, we wonder if Chris- 
tianity, cradled in a manger, coming out of 
Nazareth, embodied in simple principles, au- 
thorized by an unassuming personality, can 
ever be equal to these. Concerning this, our 
fears need never rise. The name and principles 



EVANGEUZATION OF THB WORLD. I97 

of Jesus are forever secure; He can have no 
successor, for He has no rival. But this will 
not evangelize the world, nor even save the 
Church from peril ; it did not in the fourth cen- 
tury, it will not in the twentieth. We may be 
warranted in fearing that nominal Christianity, 
borne everywhere so jubilantly on the wings of 
a universal sentiment, will not have in it nor 
behind it enough of the spirit and power of 
Jesus of Nazareth to save the world or the 
Church. We can not convert the world unless, 
where our money goes, our intelligent devotion 
goes also; nor can we, by merely supporting 
the Church, save the community. We may 
talk, agitate, and plan with all modern schemes 
of Christendom to the end of another century, 
and yet arrive at little. We must learn that 
Christianity alone can save men, and that Chris- 
tianity is something more than a great system 
in which to have confidence; it is a saving 
power through human agency, only as it be- 
comes a living virtue which never can be 
realized except in a personal life of service. 
We have been singing extensively in the past 
the military songs of Christianity, and they 
have inspired that peculiar heroism necessary 
for trials and martyrdom, and "Onward, Chris- 



198 The Evange^listic Awakening. 

tian soldiers," is still a splendid song to be sung 
on great occasions of massed representative 
Christians; but the spirit of song needed for 
to-day is, "O, give us hearts to love like 
Thine," or— 

" Ivord, lead us to the mountain's height, 
To prayer's transfiguring glow, 
And clothe us with the Spirit's might 
For nobler work below." 

The Demand Wc uccd a ucw hymu-writer who 
of the Hour, ^jjj ^^j^^ ^^^ ^pj^j^ ^^ ^^^ Master, 

and apply it to the life of to-day, inspiring 
men, not so much to march for Christ, as 
to live for Christ. We may not hope for 
the time speedily to come when the Church 
will be universally and absolutely Christian; 
but if, in this great day of responsibility and 
opportunity, we could reverse the majority 
so that even sixty per cent of our people 
were prayer-meeting Christians, self-sacrificing 
Christians, more loyal to the Church than to 
the club, more devoted to Christ than to busi- 
ness, more stock invested in the kingdom of 
God than in the passing empires of the world, 
more ready to spend time looking over God's 
great unredeemed world and planning for its 



EvANGKlvIZATlON OF THE; WORI.D. 1 99 

salvation than over the uncertain fields of 
worldly ambition and eagerly anticipating the 
harvest in stocks and bonds, silver, and gold, — 
then w^ould the question of the kingdom's com- 
ing be early settled. The demand of the wide, 
wide world of to-day is not to be shown what 
He has done for us, but what He inspires us 
to do for others. The only hope of the world's 
evangelization is, that the Church of Jesus 
Christ shall become thoroughly aware of hu- 
man need, and impassioned with the ideal of 
Christian service that comes only in its intensity 
and sustaining force through the blessed ex- 
perience of companionship with the Christ in 
seeking to save the lost. 

There is no Christianity that is 

Conclusion. ^1 . ,•, 

not Chnst-likeness, and the only 
measurement of Christian life and service is by 
correspondence to His. So much of respon- 
sibility and of possibility is involved in this 
great problem that Christ has put upon the 
hearts of His followers, that one who enters 
upon the task must feel keenly his insufficiency 
and cry, "Who is sufficient for these things?" 
and long to be possessed as much as possible 
of the life and spirit of his Master. Let all 
such pray: Blessed Master, point us back to 



200 The Evangelistic Awakkning. 

Thy manger cradle ; let us look into Thy hum- 
ble home, and gaze upon Thy hands of hardy 
toil. Permit us to stand side by side with Thee 
in the wilderness, faced by the subtle tempter 
with his taunting offers. May we comprehend 
something of the depth of Thy self-sacrificing 
sympathy in the sorrowing Bethany home! 
Lift for us a moment the sacred veil, that we 
may take Thy measurement of pain in Geth- 
semane's cruel garden. Give us courage to 
dare to face with Thee the judgment hall. 
Strengthen us once again until we are able to 
follow Thee as Thou dost bear Thy cross up 
Calvary's hill ; and before our heart has failed 
us give us one splendid vision of the cross itself, 
where, when we were sinners, Thou didst die 
for us; then point us past to the company of 
faithful ones, who, to fulfill Thy commission 
of discipling the nations, often lay in darkened 
dungeons, were lashed with many stripes, tossed 
on stormy seas, died in prison pens, or with- 
ered in fiery flames; and from this vision call 
us out to follow Thee whithersoever Thou 
goest, answering the prayer of all the centuries 
by our works as by our faith, as w^e bear in our 
bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus. Then 
Christianity will have had its supreme apolo- 



Evangelization oi^ the; World. 201 

getic in the reappearance of the Christ among 
men, miraculously incarnated in those who fol- 
low Him. Then every dark and saddened life, 
every poor and depraved nature, will be touched 
by a secret power of redemption, and speedily 
the long-wasted deserts of the earth will blos- 
som as the rose, and the kingdom of God will 
be near at hand. 



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